Grammy-winning slack-key guitarist and singer George Kahumoku, Jr. has been making music for years. He's also a sculptor, farmer, and preserver of
Hawaiian culture and heritage. He's lived most of his life in Hawaii, but he moved to Watsonville about a year ago. Now, he'll be performing at a Hawaiian cultural event taking place at the Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz this weekend.
George Kahumoku Jr. stopped by the KAZU studio ahead of the event, and began by playing a song called "Kealia."
George Kahumoku, Jr.: [that was] a song by my great-grandmother.
Dylan Music: That's beautiful. What's the name of it?
GKJ: Kealia. K-E-A-L-I-A.
DM: What does that mean?
GKJ: Ke means 'white,' and 'alia' means 'sands.'
DM: Like the white sand beaches?
GKJ: Yes. This is my grandmother's version.
DM: Does that mean that you come from a family of musicians?
GKJ: Yeah, actually, my parents and my grandparents were actually farmers and fishermen, and the music was part of growing up. We have something that today they call 'lu'au' but actually the word lu'au means 'leaf,' it's the leaf we gather for the party that you're going to have, the celebration.
You get all these opportunities to play music, and that's how I learned how to play music at all these parties.
Click the audio player at the top of this story to listen to the interview or read the highlights below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kahumoku, Jr. on the Hawaiian cultural event taking place at the Chaminade Resort this weekend:
GKJ: What's unique about it is we're going to have a three-day weekend at Chaminade Resort, and on Friday, I'm going to give a ukulele lesson. And this is not regular ukulele tunings. This is a slack-key tuning that was passed on from my great-grandfather to our family. We're also going to have some live music and tiki bar food and a food truck and that kind of thing.
Dylan Music: So how does it work? Do people come there and they stay there all weekend for the event?
GKJ: You can pick and choose. You can come for parts of the events, and the music stuff is free.
Kahumoku, Jr. on his Grammy-winning album:
DM: You won a Grammy in 2006 for Hawaiian Album of the Year for Reminiscing: An Anthology of Favorites, which features some original music and some covers like "Unchained Melody" and "Amazing Grace." It also features a lot of other musicians, like your father and Daniel Ho, who is the nephew of famous singer Don Ho. So what was that experience like, making this album and receiving the Grammy for it?
George Kahumoku, Jr.: My wife [Nancy] at the time said she wanted me to make another album. So what she did is she went into the archives. [There were] old recordings from my dad, my mom, and stuff like that. She took all the favorite recordings we did already, but a lot of them we never did publish. And she just chose her favorites. "Unchained Melody" was something we were commissioned to do by [film composer] Alex North's family. [Alex North] wrote the song. They wanted the song done in Hawaiian. So Danny Ho laid down the track in L.A. and I did the song in Hawaiian.
My part took me less than three minutes. I just did it for that and forgot about it. And then Nancy said, "I want that on this album!" So we had to go back to and ask the North family if we could use it. They said, "sure!"
Grammy-winning Hawaiian musician George Kahumoku, Jr. will be performing music, doing cooking demonstrations, and more at a Hawaiian cultural event taking place at the Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz from Friday, May 29th to Sunday, June 31st.