Japan is well known in Hawaiian music circles, and among the many foreign places where Hawaiian music can be heard and hula can be seen – Indonesia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Holland, etc. – the Land of the Rising Sun stands at the top of the list.
Hawaiian music was first performed and heard in Japan during the reign of King David Kalākaua. When the Hawaiian monarch arrived in Yokohama Harbor, the band on the dock greeted the king with “Hawai`i Pono`ī.” It is believed to have been the first Hawaiian song every heard in that country.
It was the start of something big.
Today, there are a large number of musicians and singers in Japan who specialize in Hawaiian music, often to the exclusion of all other types of music. Many of them visit Hawai`i regularly, and many are often called up to sing with local Hawaiian musical groups.
There are more hula schools and students of hula in Japan than in Hawai`i, and probably more than in the rest of the world combined. Japanese dancers come here regularly to perform and compete and, while they are not permitted to compete in the Merrie Monarch Festival, they often win honors in other major hula competitions.
In the 1950s, when we lived in Japan, there were some 500 bands in Tokyo alone that performed Hawaiian music. All the bands had a steel guitarist, at a time when the number of steel players in Hawai`i was in double digits and dropping. The traditional combo included an `ukulele, a guitar, an upright double bass, and a steel guitar, and usually featured at least one dancer, and often a falsetto singer -- much as in Hawai`i.
Last month, when George Kuo called George Matsushita of Japan up to sing at the Waikiki Marriott, we were reminded of how some of the well-known Japanese singers of Hawaiian music like Matsushita learned from prominent Hawaiian singers. Matsushita learned from Nora Keahi Santos and his falsetto style, with his voice breaking from a normal register to the higher, falsetto range, was reminiscent of the great Santos style of singing. Matsushita recorded here with such noted Hawaiian artists as Aaron Mahi, Byron Yasui, Hiram Olsen, Alan Akaka, Kuo, and yes, Nora Santos.
It is often easy to tell who most influenced some singers, whether they are from Japan or even right here at home. Sometimes, phrasing gives it away, and sometimes it is that the “students” repeat the language and lyric mistakes or the mispronunciation of their mentors. And that is just as true among local artists as those from abroad. Many learn from recordings that are fraught with mistakes.
Steel guitar became very popular among Japanese fans of Hawaiian music many years ago. If a Hawaiian musical group did not include a steel guitar, the Japanese looked at the musicians with some skepticism. How could it be Hawaiian music if it did not include a steel guitar? Many Japanese fans of Hawaiian music would pick up recordings in music stores in Hawai`i and ask the clerk if the recording included a steel guitar. If it did not, they would often put the recording back on the shelves.
That has not changed much over the past decades, despite the popularity of a handful of local recording artists who never include the steel guitar. Most fans know that the steel guitar, known the world over as the “Hawaiian” guitar,” is a newer addition to what we now think of as “traditional” Hawaiian music. The guitar was introduced in 1832 (or earlier). The `ukulele was not introduced until the 1870s, and the steel guitar was not “invented” until the late 1800s by a Hawaiian schoolboy, Joseph Kekuku. It is the youngest of the basic “Hawaiian” instruments.
Kī hō`alu, or slack-key guitar, featured in last month’s column, was much slower in catching on in Japan.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, we never heard anyone playing in a slack-key style in Japan. Even today, there are only a handful of slack-key guitarists in the country with more musicians performing Hawaiian music than in Hawai`i.
But that, we predict, will change – thanks in part to the increased popularity of kī hō`alu in the Islands and the growing interest in that very Hawaiian sound on the Mainland.
One of the leaders in playing slack-key guitar in Japan was Nobuo Mitsuhashi.
AGNES KIMURA, SLACK-KEY GUITARIST
-- September 2007 Photo by Takeshi Udagawa
And Agnes Kimura, one of the most popular artists in that genre in Japan today, fell in love with Hawaiian music and slack-key guitar (not necessarily in that order), when she heard Nobuo. She joined his band, The Maui Serenaders, gave up singing jazz and dancing in a Polynesian revue, and learned kī hō`alu from Nobuo. Today, she is one of the leaders among slack-key guitarists in Japan, as well as an outstanding `ukulele player and teacher.
Although she spends more time teaching `ukulele at several locations throughout central Japan, Agnes is perhaps best known as a leading performer of slack-key guitar. She’s been invited to perform in the 26th Annual Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival in August 2008 in Honolulu – 18 years after she became the first foreign artist featured in that annual event.
On September 30, Agnes, a second generation Japanese slack-key guitarist, celebrated her 30th anniversary of performing and recording Hawaiian music. And like many of the younger artists (the next generation) everywhere, she reflects the style of those who went before her.
In a full house at a dinner club called Ikspiari, Agnes thrilled her fans with a program of mostly traditional Hawaiian music and a few new Hawaiian songs written in the old style. She sang beautifully, from the heart, added some gracious traditional solo hula, dobro, `ukulele, ipu, AND slack-key guitar. It was as Hawaiian as any show you might see anywhere.
And Hawaiian music fans loved it, just as fans do in Hawai`i nei.
Agnes was backed by two outstanding bands, E Komo Mai (Seiji Omotani, Yusuke Suzuki, Kazuhiro Uramoto) and Yoshio Owa’s Band (Owa, Makoto Yajima, Noboru Matsumoto, Yuichi Ogura, and bassist Tomohiro Kawakami, who also accompanied the musicians of E Komo Mai). They are all Japanese, born and raised in Japan, but they play Hawaiian music like Hawaiians. They are better even than the many fine musicians we remember from 50 years ago, and even more Hawaiian.
And Agnes’ style, perfected over 30 years and half a dozen CDs on a variety of labels, is still soft and sweet, nahenahe, reminiscent of some of those she admires most – Gabby Pahinui, Raymond Kāne, Led Ka`apana, Ozzie Kotani, and others.
AGNES IN HAWAI`I: Here's Agnes Kimura some years ago with
three of Hawai`i's greatest traditional musicians (l. to r.) Benny
Kalama, Barney Isaacs, and Harold Haku`ole, at the
Halekulani Hotel. -- Photo by Keith Haugen
She has won honors for her Hawaiian recordings and it is our guess that she will be recognized for her latest CD “Ho`omana`o … My 30 Years” and her new DVD, “Agnes Kimura, the 30th Anniversary.”
Agnes will be back in Hawai`i in 2008, maybe in March and definitely in August, and she’ll be thrilling fans of Hawaiian slack-key guitar music right alongside the Hawaiians. She’s even talking about coming here this month, to promote her newest Hawaiian CD to Hawaiian music fans in Hawai`i. And that should not surprise anyone. On her latest release, she recorded such standards as “Pōhai Ke Aloha,” “Waiulu,” “Kauoha Mai,” “Pō La`ila`i,” “Papālina Lahilahi,” and Aloha `Oe.” She included two newer Hawaiian lyric songs – “Ka Pua,” for which she wrote the music; and “Mokupuni Nui,” a 1970s favorite that she learned from listening to a Led Ka`apana CD.
The CD also includes two cuts of Agnes singing on Radio Kanto 30 years ago, as a member of Tatsuo Otsuka’s Palm Serenaders. “Hawaiian Hospitality” and “Let Me Hear You Whisper,” were salvaged from a cassette recording of a radio broadcast and re-mastered for this release.
Watch for her … here in the Islands, or in Japan, where hula and Hawaiian music – including kī hō`alu – are alive and well.
