Slack-key master's personality adds to his DVD

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Keola Beamer's new DVD "Ki ho'alu (Loosen the Key)" is both informative and entertaining. Advertiser library photo

Directed by Kenneth K. Martinez Burgmaier and available on DVD, the disc is a primer of ki ho'alu performance, combining a live Maui concert with interspersed interviews. The result: provocative archival document of a precise art form, enjoyable now and preserved for future generations of slack-key players.

"Best slack key there is on the planet," raves Willie Nelson, in one of several testimonials.

"His forte is creating arrangements," says George Winston, the pianist who's also become an advocate of ki ho'alu.

"This man knows so many tunings I never knew existed," says Willie K.

With the live performance as the focal point, Beamer proceeds to demonstrate, in the concert, his varying tuning styles, offering a palette of emotions through tunes largely associated with his song bag, or his family's.

His beloved mom, educator-performer Nona Beamer, and his wife, dancer Moanalani Beamer, also are part of the tapestry of song and hula, sharing the deep, devoted familial roots of Beamer's wondrous style.

He says his creativity has no formula, that he takes "the honest approach," expressing his feelings simply through words and music.

Beamer's conversational manner, his ability to talk story like he's in his living room, is a plus; this is not a didactic treatise. There's a high entertainment quotient in his rhapsodic ramblings about growing up in Waimea, riding his horse on Maui, reflecting on elements of nature that have found their way into song ... like his classic "The Beauty of Mauna Kea."

Yes, he dusts off "Honolulu City Lights," his most popular composition, retaining that wistful yearning of coming home to a paradise of shimmering nighttime lights.

But Beamer's patter about song origins — his tutukane's composition of "Ku'u Hoa," for his tutuwahine; his homage to the aumakua, "Old Man Pueo" — are stuff of legend.

Also, his behind-the-scenes visit to Steve Grimes' Maui guitar shop (which creates the Beamer guitar, with two holes instead of one) provides yet another glimpse into the intricate but telling life of Beamer and why he is intimately connected to his craft and his career.

"We're blessed to be Island born," he sings in the title song of his previous CD and the opening and closing tune on the DVD.

We're all blessed to have a prolific Island son like Beamer.

Reach Wayne Harada at 525-8067 or wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.