CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Bill Kaiwa highlights Na Kupuna Night at the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel tomorrow.

Kaiwa relives the days
when Hawaiian music
ruled at the Moana

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By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

Anybody can play Hawaiian music or talk about being "Hawaiian style," but actually being of the culture requires understanding the nuances of Hawaiian protocol as well. If someone asks Bill Kaiwa for permission to record a song that he wrote as a gift, he in turn asks the recipient's permission to share the song.

That was the protocol when Kauai recording artist Leilani Bond asked permission to record Kaiwa's "Ka Lei Pikake."

"It was a special song written for a special person," Kaiwa explained over lunch at the Sheraton Moana Surfrider last Friday. "You don't just give a song away (to be recorded) until you ask that person if (the recording artist) can record the song,"

The song was written, he said, on a night when he loaned his shell lei to a friend and, from a distance, noticed that the precious shells looked like pikake blossoms. (To finish the story, permission was granted and the song will be on Bond's upcoming all-Hawaiian album.)

Kaiwa brings that same traditional perspective on culture and protocol to the famous Waikiki hotel tomorrow night as the headliner of Na Kupuna Night in the Banyan Courtyard. The show includes music by Hala'i, hula by kumu hula Kahale Richardson and Kuhai Halau O Kahalepuna Pa 'Olapa Kahiko, and a demonstration of the manual of arms by the Soldiers of the Royal Guard. Joe Recca will provide narration.

The show revives a popular event of the early 1960s when the original Na Kupuna Night shows were instituted to commemorate the traditional music and hula of Hawaii. The headlining performers then were Pua Almeida, Alfred Apaka Sr., Myrtle K. Hilo, Billy Hew Len, Sonny Kamahele, Leina'ala Haili and Kaiwa himself.

"I started my career (as a featured singer) here with Pua Almeida," Kaiwa said. He got the job after auditioning for Almeida on a suggestion from Ed Kenney, who he was performing with as a backing vocalist for Kenney and Haunani Kahalewai at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

Some of the local people who came to the hotel, bedecked in lei, for Na Kupuna Night in the '60s were Hawaiians old enough to remember when the "old" songs had been new. Many others knew the songs by heart even if they didn't otherwise speak Hawaiian.

"We did the old music and the old folks loved us. If you were doing 'Ahi Wela' or 'Sweet Lei Mamo,' all these audiences would sing along with you. You would be on stage singing "Alekoki" and here are all these old people singing along -- and you'd better sing the right words!"

Born William Kaiwa Ani in Honolulu, he spent his boyhood in Papakolea, but at 14 went to Kauai as the hanai son of John Waterhouse and worked with the paniolo on Kipukai Ranch. It was there that he acquired his knowledge of Hawaiian; both "regular" Hawaiian and the distinct dialect spoken on Niihau and some parts of Kauai.

"My (birth) father would never speak Hawaiian at home. If they wanted to speak something in private, they would speak Hawaiian but they never taught us the language. It was difficult for us to learn the language (in Honolulu), but on Kauai I was fortunate because my hanai dad spoke it very fluently and he didn't hide it. You had to learn a lot of the Hawaiian even if you didn't speak it very well. If they told you bring the pipi (cattle) in ... you better know what they're talking about!"

William Kaiwa Ani became Bill Kaiwa at the request of relatives who told him "we don't want to lose this (family) name."

And, no, despite the fact that his first hit and long-time signature song is "Boy From Laupahoehoe," he isn't from there and his parents were from Kohala. "But my cousins lived in Laupahoehoe."

Good tunes Na Kapuna Night featuring Bill Kaiwa: Where: Banyan Courtyard, Sheraton Moana Surfrider When: 6 p.m. tomorrow Admission: $35, includes dinner on the Banyan Veranda (seating starts 5:30) with cocktail seating at the Beach Bar and the Banyan Court. Validated self-parking available at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, 150 Kaiulani Ave. Call: 922-3111 Note: Na Kupuna Night continues on Oct. 18 and Dec. 6

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