Music is part of everyday life. We listen to it on the way to work, when we exercise, while running errands; too often in the background. However, music is a unique form of expression that traces history, tradition and culture. Music is the very fabric of Hawaiian culture, its history intertwined over the centuries and evolving into the sound you hear today. European settlers may not have discovered the islands until the 1700s, but Hawaiians discovered the gift of song long before foreigners set foot on Hawaii’s shores.
One of the strangest things about the Hawaiian language is that there is no word for “music,” but its structure has been a mainstay of Hawaiian lore. Scrum, or chant, was a ritual in ancient Hawaii, a means of preserving ancient history. These chants recounted stories of family lineage and legends of Hawaiian gods, tales told visually through hula dancing. The rituals were guided by the rhythm of a drum and a small orchestra of stones, sticks and rattles, laying the foundations of ancient Hawaiian music.
Contact with European settlers in the 1700s introduced Hawaiians to world cultures. The missionaries brought Christian hymns and various European instruments such as the flute, violin, and piano. But the Hawaiians were more fascinated with the guitar brought by the Spanish cowboys, or paniolos. Hawaiians referred to Spanish music as Cachi-cachi because his fast and improvised style of playing quickly caught on. When the Spanish returned to their home countries, they left their guitars as gifts.
Eager to create their own style of playing, the locals began loosening the strings, creating a distinctive style of fingerpicking that suited their rhythmic sensibilities. The “Slack-key” guitar became a local fad and encouraged the innovation of another style of playing: the “steel guitar”. This involved sliding a piece of steel along the strings, giving off a relaxing, dreamlike quality that would soon become the sound that would represent Hawaiian music.
These innovations inspired the locals to adopt other forms of instrumentation. The melody held strong in the voice, an emphasis on language and culture, while the sound, as dictated by ancient rituals, provided harmony and support. Many were discovering that they had an innate musical talent, and Hawaii quickly gained that talent for an orchestra. In 1915, the Royal Hawaiian Band was invited to compete at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. This was the first time people had heard of Hawaii, a culture and language expressed through song. He painted a lush portrait of the islands, an impression that everything is as melodic and polished as the music they performed.
The Royal Hawaiian Band put Hawaiian culture on the map and it was Tau Moe, a family of four also known as “The Aloha Four”, who popularized the steel guitar. They were Hawaii’s own supergroup, touring the continent and then the world. The rhythmic innovations and harmonies born from the island of Hawaii had found a global audience.
The start of recording made it possible for people to take Hawaii home. In the 1920s, “Hawaii Calls” radio programming and live broadcasts of Hawaiian music made people feel like they were really there. Almost all the hotels, the only places big enough to host bands and orchestras, had radio equipment installed. A band entertaining guests was suddenly playing for the world. By the 1950s, Hawaii Calls was broadcast on 750 stations.
Hawaiian music declined in the 1960s. Local musicians like Don Ho and Joe Keawe were still thriving, but mainland artists had flooded the scene, having tried their hand at the genre solely for its popularity. Hawaiian music was in danger of becoming a fad had it not been for the next generation of musicians.
Gabby Pahinui put the emphasis back on culture. A child prodigy of slack-key and falsetto, she had found inspiration through tradition. As Hawaiian music became more popular, it became more and more of a style. With the advancement of artists from the mainland, the genre refocused on longstanding cultural themes of sovereignty and national pride, thus spearheading a cultural awakening.
Hula was in the midst of a resurgence. The Merrie Monarch Festival, once a tourist parade, became a celebration of culture as hula troupes, or halo, now they were asked to create original chants for their routine. It was a license to create rather than repeat, introducing a new tradition to the festival by honoring those of the past. The Merrie Monarch gave birth to artists like Keali’i Reichel and The Brothers Cazimero.
This renaissance ushered in an era of Hawaiian superstars. Sonny Chillingworth and Willie K were revered for their slack-key prowess, while the falsetto wonder of Linda Dela Cruz and Amy Hanaiali’i Gillom made them overnight sensations. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, known simply as Braddah Iz, remains the most renowned Hawaiian musician of all time. His medleys of “Starting All Over Again” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” are syndicated to this day, while “Hawaiian Supa ‘Man” is a fitting mythical representation of his talent and style.
Reggae didn’t arrive in Hawaii until the ’80s. Initially shunned by traditionalists, reggae’s rhythmic wonder meshed well with similar Hawaiian musical sensibilities. Since then, Hawaii has embraced reggae and the broader Jamaican culture with open arms. The Rastafarian flag is a symbol of national pride along with the state emblem of Hawaii. Reggae and Hawaiian are inseparable on radio today, creating “Jawaiian” as a popular and significant subgenre in the canon.
What made Hawaiian music so fundamental was the culture. He made the people stop and listen. Hawaiian themes, traditions, and the stories they tell are what define Hawaiian music as a genre. As long as artists are inspired by language and culture, music will continue to be essential to the world.