Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 8, 1 August 2017 — He mana‘o, he aloha [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

He mana‘o, he aloha

By Aaron J. Salā After an illustrious performing and recording career that spanned more than seven decades, Edwin Mahi'ai "Mahi" Copp Beamer has left this earthly realm, and one ean only imagine the incredible singing that must be taking plaee now with Mahi at the piano. Grandson of the famed eomposer, Helen Desha Beamer, Mahi recorded her "Kawohikūkapulani" and "Nā Kuahiwi 'Elima," under the Decca lahel in 1957. Two years later, then with Capitol Records, he recorded two full-length albums: "The Remarkable Voice of Hawaii's Mahi Beamer in Authentic Island Songs" and "More Authentic Island Songs by Mahi...Hawaii's Most Remarkable Voice." The recordings showcase the pure falsetto

for whieh he is so well known the world over. While a student at the Juilliard School in the late 1940s, Mahi sang with Lani Mclntyre in the Hawaiian Room at the Lexington Hotel in New York. After serving in the American Army, stationed at Schofield Barracks from 1951 to 1953, he performed onstage at the Queen's Surf in Waiklkl between 1954 and 1959. He then joined his sister, Sunbeam, in Nalani Kele's Polynesian Revue at the Stardust in Las Vegas where he remained for more than a decade. After returning home permanently in 1974, Mahi began playing at piano bars, first on Kaua'i then on O'ahu at Bay View Golf Course, Andrew's Trattoria, the Moana Hotel, and finally Outrigger's Prince Kūhiō hotel from whieh he retired in 2005. Although he is most well-known for perpetuating the music of his

grandmother, Mahi was also an incredible composer whose eompositional output ranges from liūle-known "ditties" like "Pua'enaMālama By the Sea," composed at the home of his Unele Pono at Kalokohanahou in Kāne'ohe, and "Be Gone, Begonia," written in consult with cousins Nona and Keola in tribute to the automobile that transported the Beamer dance troupe across America, and the hula ku'i song, "Leilehua, Ke Kuini o ke Kai," celebrating a day with family aboard his Unele Marmion's fishing vessel, to the epie pieces he composed like "The Message" and "The Pledge" for his mother (Mildred Ka'alo'ehukaiopua'ena Copp Beamer) and father (Mihon Ho'olulu Desha Beamer, Sr.), respectively, and "God Hath Ordained" composed for cousin Marmionett's wedding. In every instance, Mahi's extraordinary

talent, both for melody and for lyric, is awe-inspiring. Among Mahi's honors are the Hawai'i Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement award received in 1991, his induction into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Lame in 2006, and Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai'i's acknowledgement of him as a "Living Treasure of Hawai'i" in 2008. In 2015, Mahi

received the I Ulu i ke Kumu award fromthe Hawai'inuiākea School for Hawaiian Knowledge. So indelible a mark has Mahi Beamer left upon the history of Hawaiian music. He will be missed by so many, and we all will revel in the purity of his falsetto and his virtuosic talent at the keyboard for years to eome. ■

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Mahi Beamer at the piano in a tribute for Princess Abigail Kawānanakoa, Mar. 1, 2008, Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu Holokū Ball, Monarch Ballroom, Royal Hawaiian Hotel. - Photo: Elaine Fergerstrom