Concert showcases a personal and
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
professional collaboration
Star-BulletinRemember when Willie K won four Na Hoku Hanohano awards in 1992 for male vocalist of the year, most promising artist, contemporary album of the year and album of the year?
The person walking each mounted Lucite disc onto the stage was none other than Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom.
"When you look at the Hoku awards, I'm in the crown, banner and the gold and black sequined gown. The first time I met him, I was the presenter who gave him all his Hokus," recalled Gilliom as she lounged on plush carpet in the modern, breezy home she shares with Willie in the Aiea foothills. No sequins here; she wears a heather-green cardigan and black pants. Her dark hair falls straight to her shoulders.
"She had attitude, too, when she was giving out the Hokus," Willie K laughs.
Six years later the duo takes the stage together for tomorrow's concert at the Hawai'i Theatre.
George and Gracie. Lucy and Desi. Now, Amy and Willie. They have coalesced as a team and reinvented the word reinvent. Willie K produced and provided instrumentation for Gilliom's blockbuster "Hawaiian Tradition" CD last year. "It just meshed together very well," she nods. He is producing her next album, which they start recording Sunday in a Waianae mountain retreat.
She is 29, he 37. Their age difference is a subject of mutual teasing in their onstage personae as a squabbling couple. In reality, Willie K offers Gilliom advice from his schooling in the profession's hard knocks. He affords her a wide berth as upfront performer. And he gives her the red carpet in her role of glamorous tita.
Likewise, Gilliom inspires Willie K to work harder. She allows him to assume the comfortable backup position he prefers. And she has opened the door for him to continue as local-boy-makes-good-singer-musician-composer-album producer.
"He's a big teddy bear, a total teddy bear," Gilliom says. "He's very professional, very business-like and a lotta fun. He was very defensive about a lotta things. Now he's better, he's very happy; so his mood has changed. He's a totally different person -- now I think he's the person he always wanted to be."
Amid laughter, the conversation meshes -- one starts talking, the other jumps in midsentence for three or four words, then the first speaker finishes the thought."We watch out for each other," she says.
"Yeah, I watch her back," he says. "She deserves someone to really look out for her."
"It's pretty equal, pretty even," she says. "I like to handle more the business side, make sure the lawyers are clued in on everything, make sure our interests are protected. That's my job, to get things back on track. Because he boosted my whole career, that's the least I could do for him."
Willie K is garbed in signature black shirt, black slacks and tied-back ponytail. He is alternately macho loud, kidding gently, sincere and brash. He punctuates his words with guitar pluckings, lifted eyebrows and wicked guffaws.
"I don't mind working hard, because I know what she can do," he says. "I want to be part of that -- movies, Broadway, when her name becomes a household word around the world. I want to be responsible for that. I'm more or less her bodyguard. I more or less give her advice."
Gilliom values his savoir-faire in producing her albums. She says he adds "just a pinch, a little bit more" as she plays the Hawaiian songbird.
"The key is we're trying," she says. "You don't ever want to be the flavor of the month as an entertainer; so people don't get tired of you."
Willie K says of the concert tomorrow and many tomorrows, "It's Amy's show. I love it. I've always been a background player, I have been for many, many, many years back playing music, but never been in the front like now. I am used to being in the back. Lotta in-front performers would not get along with Amy. Everybody thinks I'm jealous." He pauses. "Besides in the back I do not work as hard," he grins sheepishly.
Willie K may not quite remember Gilliom handing him his Hoku awards in April 1992, but for now the duo's synergy is handing them a long lease on the future.
Says Willie K, "Basically, it's Amy and Willie K -- did I say that right? Or is it Willie K and Amy?
"Because you are IT, girl, you are it," he says to Gilliom. "We know, the state of Hawaii knows, everybody knows who's da boss." He pauses again. "Because it ain't me, I know that."
Hawaiian Friday Night
Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom and Willie K perform in the city's Hawaiian Friday Nights series:
Place: Hawai'i Theatre
