Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 5, 1 ʻApelila 2008 — A reflection of two island musical legends [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A reflection of two island musical legends

By Uza Simon | KWD staff Genoa Keawe and Raymond Kane were like the heaven and earth of sweet Hawaiian musie. She lifted us with soaring falsetto, while he returned us to our roots with slaek key playing and a full-bodied voiee; she lit up stages with eonsuimnate dignity, while he would bring down the house with his rumbling kolohe ways. They were fundamentally alike in many ways, with their eapaeity for sharing and infusing their musie with aloha. This is their legaey, as deseribed by a few OHA staff and friends, who gathered to talk story about their personal remembranees of Aunty Genoa and Unele Ray. KWO' s Liza Simon was there to reeord the mana'o meant as a tribute to two great Hawaiian musieal giants. I

Jay Junker Ethnomusicologist, University of Hawai'i music instructor Raymond Kane was the slack key ambassador. Some of the best slack key players never recorded and never wanted to record and would hide if they knew you were listening to them. Unele Raymond took slack key to the hedges and highways. He taught people. He'd turn down paid gigs to go do a school show.

At one point Raymond actually sold his guitar. He had really bad emphysema and was told onee he would not survive the night. Then he had a vision that night of someone telling him, I am saving you for bigger things. And he lived and the next thing you know here comes all these people who want him to perform again. (Music producer) George Winston sought him out to record him after hearing him for the first time while driving down the road listening to a cut from My Nānāku.li on the radio. Music was his oxygen. Like Aunty Genoa, he was so committed to what he did. It was never how mueh money. It was what is the cause? And the cause was that he loved to teach and share slack key with anyone who was willing to listen and learn.

HE HO'OMANA'O • IN MEMDRIAM

9 Photos: Courtesy of Genoa Keawe Records