| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| wcerto |
Posted - 05/16/2011 : 01:05:00 AM
In traditional Hawaiian music, are there any songs that would be considered "the blues". That is one thing that has attracted me to Hawaiian music...the music never sounds "down". There are some songs that certainly have something to complain about: "Kaulana Na Pua", Lai Toodle, "Keyhole Hula", but even still, they are not bemoaning anything, they are still sweet music in primarily major keys.
Question: are there "blues" songs in traditional Hawaiian music? I do not mean soomething like "Nanakuli Blues" and other such "modern" music. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| wcerto |
Posted - 07/03/2011 : 12:59:07 AM
Bobby Ingano - "Hula Blues" with Da Ukulele Boyz and George Kahumoku - - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F4vRmZa-M |
| wcerto |
Posted - 07/02/2011 : 08:32:51 AM
Keoki Kahumoku, David Kamakahi, Ikakika Brown and Kai Ho`opi`i - Huntin' Brown Dog /Taro Patch Twist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTv11u6NxM&feature=feedu
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| Shawny |
Posted - 06/18/2011 : 09:29:38 AM
Oh yes!! I forgot, one other song that stuck out to me back then, some 6 years ago when I was plotting this crazy idea, wich yes, has still not actually come to fruition.. Lei Hinahina... It could arguably be a blues song... I've heard many blues songs where a guy is talking down some girl's new boyfriend, or whatever he might be to her.
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| Shawny |
Posted - 06/18/2011 : 09:26:01 AM
Great topic!
Yes, I did figure the question was based more on content rather than actual musical styling.. I was actually planning on doing a recording with a list of songs that in terms of content would be considered Blues songs.. Alekoki was on that list for sure, as was a few others that were mentioned.. I was gonna do blues arrangements on all these songs, since this question was actually asked by someone I knew a while back, and I thought it might be interesting to try as a concept project... It would certainly be met with some objection by many traditionalists.. But again, this was a concept thing.. And it might've breathed some interesting life into some songs..
Anyway, I just thought I'd say something here, because this is definitely an interesting topic for me to read..
Have a good one..
Shawny |
| markwitz |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 08:06:57 AM
I think this would qualify as Hawaiian Blues. The Sons Of Hawai'i do it, but the version that Leabert Lindsey does is a real heart render. A song of a love affair ending.
The following info was copied from the www.huapala.org website
Honesakala - by Thomas Lindsay
Ho`oheno kêia no ka honesakala
Ke `ala mua ho`i a`u i honi ai
Ho`opa`a ia ma ku`u pu`uwai
Me kahi pôkê a kâua i kui ai
Hui:
`Ike au i ka `ono o ka wai `oia pua
`Upu a`e ka mana`o e ki`i hou e `ako
`A`ohe kani leo na manu o `Ola`a
Ua la`ahia au me ka kuhi hewa
Ua waiho iho au i kahi lei ua mae
I ho`ailona nou e `ike iho ai
He `u`a keia ua hiki mai nei
Ke ahu mai nei kamaheu hele hewa
`A`ole no ku`u `ike `ana i ka nani
Wau a`e ka`ena wale a`e ai
He maka`u nui ko`u pulu i ka ua
O `elo`elo ho`i a loa`a i ke anu
This is a love song for the honeysuckle
Whose fragrance I first smelled
Held fast (our love) within my heart
With the flowers we strung together
Chorus:
I tasted the honey within the flower
And thought to pick some more
But the birds of `Ola`a no longer sing
For I found myself mistaken
I left my lei already wilted
As a token for you to see
A worthless person had already come
The signs of the mischief maker lie all about
It isn't because of the beauty I saw
That I make idle boasts
But I was afraid of being wet in the rain
And the drenching will give me a cold
Source: Clyde Kindey Sproat - Translated by Mary Puku'i - Composer Thomas Lindsey, a young Waimea cowboy from Parker Ranch, was in love with a lady from Kohala. He rode through Kawaihae uka where stonewalls along the way were laden with honeysuckle. He fashioned leis and bouquets of honeysuckle whenever he visited her. Parker Ranch selected him to go for higher education on the mainland; so he went to visit his lady with the usual leis. While there, he proposed to her and she accepted. Upon his return, after two years, he saddled up and hastily rode down with his leis for her. Arriving at her home, he saw a dried lei and someone's boots where his ought to be. Leaving his lei of honeysuckle at her doorstep, he rode away for the last time. Not long after this song was published, Lindsey, while working the cattle up on Hualalai, was thrown from his horse and died of head injuries sustained in the accident. He was 23 years old. |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 05/30/2011 : 06:37:26 AM
I saw Led play Country Blues on a National during one of his sets. |
| dagan |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 12:35:20 PM
and of course brother noland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fmfo6-VXXY
and if you've ever seen willie k, you KNOW he can play the blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbZy4CJ9jbE |
| dagan |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 12:25:19 PM
interesting topic, i've heard del beazley rip some killer blues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uneVVJoX_TM
if not check out this clip. anyways, get choke hawaiian guys playing blues music. |
| walterotter |
Posted - 05/22/2011 : 08:12:56 AM
fascinating topic not qualified to give an expert opinion so feel free to correct me when I say that Hawaiin music seems to me to have embraced a myriad of influences from the Polynesian's onwards, the Christian ministries, Portugese folk music amongst the many immigrants and the Paniola cowboys all playing their part and it seems reading the biographies of Hawaiin musicians that American jazz of the early 1900s seeped in as well and maybe the odd lick of blues will crop up but depends what you mean by blues, there are so many styles of blues as there are arguments about who invented jazz.
Who invented Hawaiin music I'm not sure but the earliest exponents musta landed in them double hulled canoes long before everyone else showed up . . .
Mike in the shires
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| noeau |
Posted - 05/17/2011 : 9:18:33 PM
Don't forget Hawai'i 78 by Iz. He Hawaiian and the topic is Hawaiian sooo? |
| hwnmusiclives |
Posted - 05/17/2011 : 08:06:06 AM
Wanda -
It's amazing, but I can't believe you raise this topic at a time when I was actually researching (what I have been calling) Hawaiian "torch" songs - and, specifically, songs about unrequited love. I got to thinking about this because I am a huge fan of Hawaiian music (duh!) but, also, I am a huge fan of Frank Sinatra who delivered a torch song like nobody else.
So, there are lots of songs of this kind - love songs that do not necessarily have a happy ending (or whose ending is unknown because the story does not end with the song). No Ke Aha, Ho'onanea, Ei Nei, Kawaipunahele, E Huli Ho'i Mai, 'Ahulili, Hi'ilawe, Ipo Lei Manu, Kauoha Mai, Hilihila'ole 'Oe, Hali'i Ka Moena, Adios Ke Aloha... But to your point, none of these sound as dire as the mele really imply.
This is because, I think, of a long-standing tradition among haku mele to deliberately mismatch the message of the mele and the sound of the music. (Noelani Mahoe writes about this - briefly - in the preface to "101 Hawaiian Songs.") I think of this as a type of "musical kaona" - masking the plaintive meaning of the song with a more joyous melody and chord structure. (This is not unlike funeral dirges in New Orleans. Listen to a brass band play a New Orleans funeral, and if you close your eyes you would think it was a wedding!)
Hawai'i's haku mele are the masters of layering the meanings in their work. Why not layer them within the melody and chords, too?
I discussed this with Moon Kauakahi...nearly 20 years ago now. And he takes a different approach. (He mentioned this briefly in his interview in Jay Hartwell's "Na Mamo: Hawaiian People Today.") Moon's approach - and it is evident in the Makaha Sons' work - is to make the arrangement of a song sound as much like the story of the song as possible - a sort of "tone poem" - so that audiences that do not understand the Hawaiian language can still find meaning in the song.
My mother gave me a definition of music that she co-opted from her music theory courses. (I have not heard such a convoluted definition since.) She said, "Music is sound that has been organized and, through the system of organization, conveys mood and motion through orchestration and form." That is such a loaded defintion, but this is what Moon was talking about. What he suggests is that sad songs should sound sad, and ironic songs should sound ironic. (And I am thinking now of the Makaha Sons arrangement for 'A'ole La**.) It is possible to do. But it is another kind of poetry entirely - and typically Hawaiian - to avoid such a western convention.
- Bill
**Sadly, I believe this is now being referred to as the "Governor's Hula."
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| wcerto |
Posted - 05/17/2011 : 04:28:07 AM
Eh Kory. Then I must have plenny standards because I complain plenny.
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| thumbstruck |
Posted - 05/17/2011 : 03:39:47 AM
We get plenny clouds an' rain, Seattle side. You can tell the natives here from the out-of-staters, the natives don't have umberellas.
I remember my grandmother singing sad songs in Swedish (funny ones, too). The ability to complain shows that one has standards. |
| wcerto |
Posted - 05/17/2011 : 01:37:31 AM
Thanks, Fran, for pointing out more examples to me. For sure "He Aloha Moku O Keawe". That was written by the Emalia Kaihumua who was sung about in the song "Hilo One". Uncle Kihei tells a very sad story of her life. She missed her homeland so very much. She lived a tragic life, eventually dying in an insane asylum.
"Ka Makani Ka `Ili Aloha" does sound so very plaintive. Each of the examples you cited is an example of what I was looking for. Maybe even "Pua Lilia". As George Kuo explains so well, the guy in the song is very sad because he finds out his beloved lily flower has already been "plucked". "Maunaloa" is the ultimate brush off song. Yeah, OK. I am seeing there are a lot more examples of this than i earlier thought.
And Terry -- What I intended this to be about is not what is Hawaiian or what is not Hawaiian, rather, just as Fran helped me with -- songs that have the types of topics that could be considered subject matter that has frequently been sung about in blues songs as well. You like what you like and that is only your business. I did not mean it to be about any new music; rather to look at the words in the poetry of traditional songs for subject matter that is not always happy even though the melodies in the songs are so deceptively sweet and upbeat.
I guess I must be way too tired of the incessant rain here in Ohio. See what lack of sun can do? it brings on the blues. |
| ricdoug |
Posted - 05/16/2011 : 4:48:54 PM
Waimanalo Blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgZqxdjXutA |
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