One Big Hawaiian Music Thread [View all]

Last edited Wed Dec 14, 2011, 05:49 PM - Edit history (2)

Please post any Hawaiian music you like in this thread (Jawaiian and contemporary is okay too )

Let's start with:

Charles Philip "Gabby" or "Pops" Pahinui (April 22, 1921 - October 13, 1980) was a slack-key guitarist.

Gabby was born Charles Kapono Kahahawaii Jr. and later hānai-ed into the Pahinui family as Charles Philip Pahinui and raised in the Kaka'ako area of Honolulu in the 1920s. It was impoverished at the time, very much resembling a shanty-town with small cluttered buildings and tin roofs falling apart.[citation needed] He spent his childhood supporting his family by selling newspapers and shining shoes. He dropped out of school after 5th grade at Pokukaina School.

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The Hawaiian Renaissance of the '70s launched a cultural reawakening of all things Hawaiian. Gabby played an important part in the rise of this Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance. First there were the albums recorded through the 1960s with the enormously popular and influential Sons of Hawaii, which he started with `ukulele virtuoso Eddie Kamae: their self-titled debut album (Hula HS 503, 1961); Music of Old Hawai`i (Hula HS 506, 1964); and Folk Music of Hawai`i (Panini 1001, 1971).

As he enjoyed his new success in the '70s, his life-long drinking and a bad road crew accident left his health failing. He retired from road work but took up teaching in the City and County's cultural programs.
He died in 1980 at the age of 59.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin Newspaper stated about Pahinui "The thing about Gabby Pahinui," says DeSoto Brown, a Hawaiian cultural-history expert whose brother worked with Pahinui, "was not only that he was an outstanding musician and entertainer, and a central figure -- maybe THE central figure -- of the Hawaiian Renaissance in the '70s, but that he was an inspiration to others. Thousands of Hawaiian kids learned that they were worthy as a people because of Gabby's example."[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Pahinui

This one is in English, the rest are in Hawaiian: