Posted on: Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Book explores music's spiritual connections
| • | Eddie Kamae: A life tuned in key of destiny |
An excerpt from "Hawaiian Son":
In 1959, Eddie Kamae and an ailing Gabby Pahinui jammed alone for the first time in a house in Waimanalo, the beginning of what would be a history-making friendship.
"They played through the afternoon and into the evening. He stayed overnight, and they played through the next day, then the next. It was one of those magic times musicians live for, when the chemistry is right and unforeseen connections begin to ignite the air. Gabby — accomplished on every stringed instrument — was impressed by Eddie's versatility and technical expertise. And Eddie began to hear something he had previously not been able to hear, to feel something that until this meeting he had not been able to feel, or perhaps had not been ready to feel. It was in Gabby's strum, his sense of rhythm, with its echo of old hula drumming. It was also in his voice. ... 'I heard the soul speaking,' Eddie says, 'and in almost an instant, I understood what my father had tried to tell me about Hawaiian music. I wish now he was there so I could say, "Dad, you were right all along." But he had already passed away, so he never got to hear me play the music he always wanted me to play. He would have grinned real wide to hear me say it was not about all those things I used to think were so important, music theory and sophisticated chords. There in Waimanalo, just the two of us, Gabby is pouring out his heart, and the whole history of Hawai'i is in his voice. For me, it was like a religious conversion.' "
