(Instrumental music) VO: American musical roots have been dipping into this Pacific aquifer for a long, long time.

VO: No one was really playing guitar as a lead melodic instrument, at that time, until Hawaiians came along.

VO: They're singing all of these iconic songs of sovereignty, and restoration, and resistance and people are awestruck by the band wherever they go.

(Instrumental music) (Singing) Ke liolio nei Ke kauala likini 'Alu'alu 'ole iho Na pe'a i ka makani... RAIATEA: My name is Raiatea Mokihana Maile Helm.

I'm a Hawaiian musician from the island of Moloka'i.

For more than 20 years, I have been recording and performing Hawaiian music, or mele Hawai'i.

And I've always turned to the past for inspiration.

(Singing) Aia I ka u ka o Pi'ihonua Ke kihapai pua ulumahiehie I laila au ia 'ike i ka nani... RAIATEA: As I've learned about Hawaiian music history I discovered that my ancestors created more than just songs.

They left a legacy that resonated far beyond these islands.

The music born in Hawai'i has left an indelible mark on the world— shaping and inspiring genres and countless musicians.

(Singing) kuahiwi Na 'i'iwi ma ka polena... RAIATEA: This is the story of how early Hawaiian musicians traveled far and wide influencing the way music is played, heard, and felt around the world.

(Singing) O Moanike'ala i ka uluwehiwehi (Drumming) VO: The Hawaiian people have been from time immemorial lovers of poetry and music, and have been apt in improvising historic poems, songs of love, and chants of worship, so that praises of the living or wails over the dead were with them but the natural expression of their feelings.

Queen Lili'uokalani, 1898.

KAINANI: Getting to know our mele is one of the easiest ways to learn a little bit more of our history, learn a little bit more of the people, the relationships between our people and our land, the relationships between the elements.

Prior to this new technology of reading and writing, our language was purely oral.

All of our histories, our genealogies, our stories, everything was communicated through speaking, through chanting, through praying, through storytelling, and definitely through song.

(Chanting) Ke nana iho 'oe i lalo 'o ke kula ea Me he moena pawehe... KIMO: People who are who are expert wordsmiths.

These are called haku mele, or composers.

Haku means to assemble or put something together.

And mele is poetry.

So these people were experts in putting words together.

The people that specialized in mele were trained from the time they were born.

It had to be fine-tuned, vocally and also mentally because there was no there was no written word.. Everything that every Hawaiian did in pre-contact time depended on your mental capacity and to memorize chants.

Some of these chants are thousands of lines long.

Mele also carry our genealogies.

This is very important especially for the royal families to claim their descent from the gods and goddesses themselves.

(Chanting) Ula no weo la la e ka lae la Ka pua 'ilima la... KIMO: There's also of the mele that would be historic recitations.

In our mele, is our history.

The late Princess Abigail Kawananakoa told me this, she said Kimo, if you want to understand the mind and the heart of our Hawaiian people, you must understand the mele.

(Chanting) He'e ana i ka lala la Ho'i ana i ka muku A ka nalu o ho'eu la Eu ho'i a'e kaua... KIMO: Hawaiians have a saying even today we believe this, i ka 'olelo ke ola, i ka 'olelo ka make.

In the word is life and in the word is death.

Now in the Hawaiian language we have about 35,000 words.

That's, not a, a whole lot when, when you look at other languages.

So every Hawaiian word has more than one meaning.

PAIGE: Mele and song in and of itself is just the conduit for preserving our culture and our history.

Right, It's the vehicle that carried the knowledge down for us.

I even think about it like we have mele that we still sing and perform today, but in a different manner.

Right, it's moved from a chant to a song.

It's moved from an oral tradition to a recorded one.

(Singing) la'i la lae lae (Nani Wailua) Nani Wailua I ka ehu O ke kai I ka holu nape o ka lau on ka ni'u I kowelo ha'aheo hae Hawai'i Ku kilakila i ka la'i la lae lae... RAIATEA: Captain Cook landed in the Hawaiian archipelago in 1778.

He and his crew were the first documented people of European descent to come into contact with Kanaka Maoli, or the Hawaiian people.

From that date forward many Westerners have arrived on Hawaiian shores bringing with them their languages, technologies, cultures, and of course their music and instruments.

(Instrumental music) KIMO: When ships are gonna be calling to Hawai'i's ports in the 19th century, the missionaries are going to come not as frequently as whalers or as merchant ships where they're going to bring their own kinds of folk songs from their countries.

They're going to have their own ways of singing and their own instruments.

And so the Hawaiians that live closer to the ports are going to be exposed more to these kinds of mele.

And of course when the missionaries came here, they're going to be exposed to the himene haipule, or those religious songs that have to do with Christian devotion.

(Singing) E ko makou Makua i loko o ka lani... CHARLES: Not only were many of the Hawaiian songs taken from early hymn tunes, Hawai'i had its own hymns, such as, Hawai'i Aloha composed by Reverend Lorenzo Lyons —a man who clearly helped establish Hawaiian as a written language—coming second only to those earlier missionaries who translated the scriptures.

Hawai'i Aloha is truly Hawai'i's own hymn.

(Pipe organ music) (Singing) E Hawai'i e ku'u one hanau e Ku'u home kulaiwi nei... KIMO: Hawaiians are also going to be exposed to a whole bunch of sheet music that is not sacred, but secular.

And so they're going to pick up different melodic shapes and tempos.

They're going to adapt their Hawaiian words to these kinds of musical forms too.

(Instrumental music) (Singing) Pupue iho au i mehana Hone ana o uese i ku'u poli... ALICE: The style that I am playing was played in the 1800s.

Soon after the Spanish people left Hawai'i after King Kamehameha's invitation.

(Singing) Hone ana o uese i ku'u poli... ALICE: So my brother picked it up.

So, I have been playing it ever since.

BOB: Uh huh.

Did you pick it up on your brother's guitar, was that it?

ALICE: Yes.

Every time when he put it down I had the tune in my mind and I'd pick it up and he was happy that I was interested in it.

(Singing) Malihini 'oe, malihini au... KAUWILA: As early as foreigners come into Hawai'i a lot of Kanaka are leaving.

Looking for new opportunities, not just financially, but really looking at what's out there in the world, especially kanaka who are really good in the water, already attuned to life at sea.

Some of the earliest immigrations are in the whaling industry.

So kanaka leave and depart Hawai'i on whaling ships.

About the 1840s the Gold Rush is starting to occur in San Francisco and a lot of kanaka also leave and depart Hawai'i in that same time span.

KILIN: The extent that Hawaiians traveled and located stringed instruments that they fell in love with and wanted to bring home, it's remarkable.

It's a big piece of the story.

Often times the story is about what foreigners or haole brought to, you know, Hawai'i and we've really seen that the story is more about what Hawaiians went out and gathered and then brought home, mastered, and then changed.

And then made into something entirely different.

KIMO: During the Kalakaua period we're going to see an infusion of outside influences of music coming and blending with our Hawaiian traditions and outside influences in dance blending in with our Hawaiian traditions.

And so what people commonly call today, hula 'auana actually is called hula ku'i.

Ku'i meaning the joining of the old and the joining of the new.

(Singing) Koni au i ka wai hu'ihu'i I ka wai ali'i 'o ke kini la 'Olu ai ka nohona o ka la'i Ho'ohihi kahi mana'o I ka 'ehu kai o Pua'ena Kai hawanawana i ka la'i la... RAIATEA: Ali'i or Hawaiian Royalty were quick to adopt and adapt Western learning and technology.

The kings and queens of the kingdom of Hawai'i had a grand vision for their nation and through education, industry, and forward-thinking they endeavored to make Hawai'i a place of excellence.

That vision of excellence extended to the musical arts.

(Singing) 'Olu ai ka nohona o ka la (ku!)

PAIGE: I think in that time we just had such a global mindset.

We thought big, we didn't think small, just because we were physically a small area.

We thought on a very grand scale.

Our government, our monarchy, our ali'i were very much holding the same status as other larger countries.

So I think it's that mindset that helps to carry Hawaiian thoughts and Hawaiian music across the globe.

(Instrumental Music) KILIN: In the 19th century what get refered to as European instruments—stringed instruments, brass instruments, the reed instruments— under this vision of the Hawaiian royalty, all of these are put into use in the Royal Hawaiian Band, which, we can trace to about 1836 in one of its earliest incarnations.

And Kamehameha V in 1869 decided that his royal Hawaiian military brass band was gonna be the best in the world.

He resolved to make that a reality.

And he reached out to the Prussian czar and said we'd like one of your bandmasters to come and share Prussian/German brass band culture and brass band repertoire with our band.

A man named Henri Berger was brought by King Kamehameha V to lead the Royal Hawaiian Band.

Berger's story is fascinating (laughs).

He came from Coswig, Germany and he had been orphaned as a young boy and was apprenticed to the resident music director of Coswig.

And music changed his life.

It was his salvation from possibly a life of being a little truant.

And so I think when Berger came and King Kamehameha V tasked him with recruiting and expanding the membership of the Royal Hawaiian Band from about 11 members to a full-sized 40-member military brass band, it was in Berger's own history to turn to professional musicians from the boy's reform school— the Keone'ula Boys Reform School.

And that reform school was a place where orphaned, abandoned, or convicted young men aged 7 to 17 were being sent.

And that concept of putting music at the forefront of those young people's education is something that really changed Hawaiian history and in turn changed the world's music story.

And those musicians who graduated the reform school playing trombone, cornet, saxophone and all the array of brass instruments, as well as clarinet, the reed family instruments; they were also playing stringed instruments.

And stringed instruments in the Hawaiian kingdom, at that time, were hugely popular.

(Instrumental Music) (Singing) Ku'u ipo i ka he'e pu'e one Me ke kai nehe i ka 'ili'ili... RAIATEA: Hawaiian music expanded during the time of Na Lani 'Eha or the Heavenly Four; siblings and last ruling monarchs of the Hawaiian Kingdom: King David Kalakaua, Prince William Pitt Leleiohoku, Princess Miriam Likelike and Queen Lili'uokalani.

Not only was the royal family instructed and taught by the best tutors from around the world, they were all expert musicians—skilled composers and instrumetalists.

They penned hundreds of songs that are still sung today in Hawai'i.

HA'ALILIO: These ali'i were so well trained and educated in not just the composition, but also the musical side, notation.

And they're also running the country.

So their influence is immeasurable.

KIMO: Kalakaua and his family they were very prolific composers.

Well, they learned music, you know, from their early childhood at the Royal School.

That was part of the curriculum.

So they knew how to read music, write music, and perform music.

And Kalakaua was a pretty good composer himself.

Queen Lili'uokalani, wow!

I mean, she has a lot of beautiful stuff too.

And then their sister, Princess Miriam Likelike, she has some pretty nice decent things.

Oh, but their brother Leleiohoku.

Now that's the one.

I mean, had he have lived longer wow he would have left us so much more music, but he knew he knew how to compose in all different kinds of moods.

And he was a real good wordsmith, too.

(Singing) Ka wahine hele la o Kaiona Alualu wai li'ula o ke kaha pua 'ohai O ka ua lanipo lua... KILIN: What's interesting, if we look at the location of Keone'ula Boys Reform school.

It's right across the street from where Miss Dominus soon to be Queen Lili'uokalani, her home.

It also turns out that Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani's home was across the street from that boy's reform school and that was where William Pitt Leleiohoku was likely rehearsing his Kawaihau Glee Club, his String Band.

I often wondered were those reform school boys, in the 1870s, were they hearing these, you know, stringed instruments and these songs and these rehearsals of the Kawaihau Glee Club and Queen Lili'uokalani playing her piano, or her autoharp?

It was a quieter time, you know, there was not a din of city generators and trucks and that rolling by.

(Singing) Ku'u ipo i ka he'e pu'e one... KILIN: This emphasis on music education empowered those young reform school graduates, as well as the graduates of Kamehameha Schools.

They were both learning from the same mentors, whether it was the ali'i of Na Lani 'Eha or Henri Berger.

And there's a long list of really significant Hawaiian musicians that came through that program.

Mekia Kealakai, of course, graduated 1882 from that school.

David Nape, another really brilliant multi-instrumentalist, composer was leading the Keone'ula Boys Reform School brass band at age 13, and Charles and David Kaleikoa.

There's a whole list of really profound musicians who would become life-long professional touring musicians and composers.

DUANE PADILLA: So when was this song written?

Can you give us an idea?

KILIN: This is about 1904, '05.

And it was actually written just a few blocks from where we're all sitting right now playing.

Mary Jane Montano had gone to Charles E. King and said I need music for these lyrics.

And Charles E. King had said well you need to go find David Nape.

I think he's down at Mekia's, you know, watering hole.

It was called, it was called the Wai Nui Nui Saloon.

RAIATEA: Oh, what?!

KILIN: And Mekia, had put the challenge to David Nape, if you can compose music to these lyrics I'll give you all the beer you want to drink the rest of the day.

And apparently, David Nape walked out on the back stoop and composed this.

(Instrumental music) (Singing) Pua wale mai no ke aloha Ka paia puia i ke'ala I ka wai hu'ihu'i aniani... KILIN: This generation of Royal Hawaiian Band members—some had come out of the reform school others had come out of Kamehameha Schools—they're multi-instrumentalists.

They're playing their brass instruments but they're also playing all of these really popular stringed instruments, in the Hawaiian Kingdom.

And there's a critical moment where King Kalakaua's Royal Hawaiian Band is invited to compete in San Francisco in a brass band contest organized by the Masons: The Triennial Conclave of the Knights Templar brass band contest, August of 1883.

They make the journey from Honolulu to San Francisco in about a week and as they started to march through the streets of San Francisco they were doing something that no one else was doing, and that was singing.

(Singing) Koni au, koni au i ka wai, Koni au i ka wai hu'ihu'i I ka wai ali'i, 'o ke kini la 'Olu ai ka nohona o ka la'i... KILIN: That's where they sang the compositions of Hawai'i, that's really where the songs that were had been composed by their kings and queens were shared with audiences really, possibly for the first time.

And the response was tremendous.

Thousands of people would gather then 10,000 then 20,000 people are crowding the streets of San Francisco to hear this Royal Hawaiian band.

(Singing) Koni au i ka wai hu'ihu'i I ka wai ali'i, 'o ke kini la 'Olu ai ka nohona o ka la'i KILIN: And out of all the brass bands, that had come to compete from Chicago, New York, you know, Philadelphia, all the best brass bands, this Hawaiian band was crowned victorious first place.

VO: The Hawaiian Band have done themselves great credit.

Not only are they skillful as musicians but their deportment is excellent, and it is conceded that they are the best musicians that ever visited this state.

Correspondent for the Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser, San Francisco, September 3rd, 1883.

JOHN: As people in Hawai'i know, Hawaiians have always been travelers, they've always navigated the region of the Pacific and beyond.

And, in that context the musicians were really following suit in terms of these kind of voyages of discovery, and these these journeys, of knowledge building.

And beginning really in the 1880s, although there were some Hawaiian people who were traveling, you know, to parts of South America and Central America decades before that, playing music.

By the 1880s or so you see entertainment circuits really developing where there are vaudeville houses that are beginning to populate towns all across the continent and beyond.

And there are railroads that are connecting a lot of these towns that are then facilitating the travel of entertainers, from night to night to different locations.

There are also kind of the advent of circus performances of Wild West shows of native people performing in shows that are traveling all across the continent and beyond.

And in the 1880s, and 1890s, we see Hawaiian dancers, musicians, Hawaiian troupes, really beginning to lock into these circuits where they were finding ways to make a living, sometimes very successful living, as musical artists traveling first in the rim surrounding the Pacific Ocean, but very quickly then moving into continents, all progressing outward from the center from the Hawaiian Kingdom.

And so they are also being recognized by the 1890s as bringing a music making and dance traditions that are, as they were totally unique, totally unlike anything that people living in different parts of the world had encountered before.

And they thrilled the folks that they were playing in front of thrilled over the sounds and the motions that they were witnessing and hearing in this moment.

VO: Not in many a day has a musical act created so favorable an impression among local vaudeville patrons as has that of the Royal Hawaiian troupe of singers, dancers, and instrumentalists in the Miles theater this week.

The guitar playing of two of the Hawaiian young men after the fashion peculiar to the islands seems to hold audiences spellbound.

The Detroit Times, Detroit, Michigan, March 1st, 1911.

VO: Of all the instrumental music ever listened to by a Wellington audience, we do not believe any ever exceeded, and we doubt if any ever equaled in quality, the grand concert given yesterday afternoon at the opera house by the Royal Hawaiian Band and Glee Club.

People's Voice, Wellington Kansas, November 14th, 1895.

(Singing) Mana'o healoha 'ea No ka ipo lei manu Mana'o healoha 'ea No ka ipo lei manu... RAIATEA: As Hawaiian music and musicians were spreading across the globe trouble was brewing at home.

In 1893 American businessmen, backed by the presence of the US Marines, demanded that Queen Lili'uokalani relinquish control of the government.

Fearing the military of the United States and wanting to avoid the shedding of blood of her people Lili'uokalani yielded up her power under duress.

A provisional government controlled by these American businessmen would enact many policies that led to the disenfranchisement of the native Hawaiian people.

(Singing) He manu ku'u hoa JOHN: A lot of Hawaiian people are really weighing their options.

It's an it's a time of dramatic upheaval, of anxiety, of fear.

It's a time of course, when the overwhelming majority, vast majority, 95% of Hawaiian people are publicly stating their wishes to resist annexation of the kingdom by the US government.

And so everything is up in the air in that moment politically, for the Hawaiian people.

And it's at that moment also, where so many Hawaiian entertainers begin making decisions to take their families with them, to fan out into what becomes a diaspora of Hawaiian music makers, who then began traveling all over the world.

By the 19 teens, we find their music, becoming some of the most captivating and popular music in regions all over the world.

It's at that moment in the mid 19 teens where commercial recordings of Hawaiian guitar music seem to be outselling all other genres of music in the United States.

And it's because of the efforts of hundreds of Hawaiian guitarists and other music makers and performers who see opportunity with these circuits of entertainment to continue their traditions, to continue to sing their songs, their mele, in the Hawaiian language, to continue to honor their queen in these performances, and the queen's compositions and her family's compositions.

We see them taking advantage of these opportunities for commerce and for making a living as a means to perpetuate customs traditions that were under immediate threat and real threat in the Hawaiian Islands themselves.

And so, it's a remarkable period of time for so many reasons for Hawai'i and for Hawaiian people.

(Singing) Ka Makua mana loa Maliu mai ia makou E haliu aku nei Me ka na'au ha'aha'a... JOHN: Not knowing much of this history at all, when I began learning more about it and working on research around the origins of the Hawaiian guitar, it was just stunning.

It was breathtaking.

The expanse to which Hawaiian musicians were traveling their customs, their traditions, their stories and their families, all over the world in this, this kind of foundational period for transformation and change for Hawaiian music making and transformation of so many other vernacular genres of music and popular genres of music that followed in their wake from other parts of the world.

(Singing) kou pono mau A ma kou KAUWILA: After the overthrow, there's so many songs that are composed for Lili'uokalani that it's almost pointless to try to enumerate them.

Within the first couple months, newspapers are publishing so many mele, so many songs, that there's almost no way for you to document and read all of them, let alone hear what they sound like today.

But there are songs that have stuck out that a lot of people know like Kaulana Na Pua, which was composed by Keko'aohiwaikalani Prendergast Wright and actually has a different name before it becomes Kaulana Na Pua, which is Mele Aloha 'Aina, or Patriotic Song.

(Singing) KAUWILA: After this time period, one of the first things that happens is the Royal Hawaiian band is being asked by Henri Berger to sign over their allegiance to the American settler governement.

And almost every single band member refuses and leaves the official government Royal Hawaiian Band, and they start their own band.

The person who was the first chair clarinetist becomes one of the conductors and his name is Jose Libornio.

And he's a Philippine National, who came to Hawai'i to learn and celebrate music.

That Royal Hawaiian Band is one of the first troupes to leave Hawai'i and start to play music as a Hawaiian national band all throughout the United States.

One of the messages that becomes very clear for that band, Bana Lahui Hawai'i, the Royal Hawaiian Band, is every place they go, they're singing these songs like Kaulana Na Pua, like Aloha 'Oe, like Hawai'i Pono'i, all of these iconic songs of sovereignty, and restoration, and resistance for Kanaka Maoli.

And these are the songs that they carry with them wherever they go.

And it's not just that they're carrying these mele with them.

People are awestruck by the band wherever they go.

(Singing) Ma hope makou o Lili'ulani A loa'a e ka pono o ka 'aina... HA'ALILIO: There's a direct relationship between political strife and creativity in the arts.

And I think towards the end of the 19th century, in Hawai'i, which is the most volatile period of our history even until today, we have these mounting political pressures and foreign interests arriving on Hawai'i shores, and at the same time, we see this blossoming or skyrocketing of poetic composition and musical performance and there's a definitive function that it takes on which is a vehicle for political resistance and for Hawaiians, and by that I mean ethnic Hawaiians and national Hawaiians, to pledge their loyalty to the crown and show their allegiance and really support their nation.

So much of that resistance, or loyalty, or both, is accomplished through composition and performance, musical, mele Hawai'i.

So by the time we get to 1893, when Queen Lili'uokalani is overthrown there are I mean, just dozens, hundreds, we've made books about all of the Mele Lahui, National Songs that pledge loyalty to the aupuni, the kingdom, the nation, at that time it was a queendom, and the queen herself.

And e ola mau Hawai'i, e ola mau komo i—all of those long live the queen, long live the king, long live Hawai'i, may the Hawaiian flag wave forever.

You see those sentiments really driving a whole lot of musical performance and composition and such a robust corpus of mele Hawai'i to emerge at that time around that theme.

(Instrumental music) KILIN: So the 1880s we see increasing travel of these Royal Hawaiian glee clubs, these string bands.

The Kawaihau Glee Club, becomes a really popular performing band in Honolulu, they're playing for dances, dances that would go on till four o'clock in the morning, often.

And what had happened in Honolulu, politically, circumstances for these Hawaiian musicians who knew Queen Lili'uokalani that, you know, they were mentored by her.

They were loyal to her.

And they refused to denounce their monarchs and their tradition and their Hawaiian royalty.

So there starts to be a really big exodus under the Provisional Government era of Sanford Dole and the architects of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

And these musicians, I think really grasped that through their music, through their singing, through their compositions, and through their new Hawaiian string band style could really get a message out there.

(Singing) Ha'aheo ka ua i na pali... KILIN: They were blasting out what was happening in Hawai'i, the injustice.

And also the joy, the revelry of their musical tradition landed like fireworks and bombs in small, rural American towns, you know, throughout the Midwest, the North, the South, the East, everywhere they traveled people going, what is this, this sound, what is this energy, and these rhythms, these melodies?

It was monumental.

HA'ALILIO: Act 57, passed by the Republic of Hawai'i in 1896.

And really went into effect in 1897, which essentially erased Hawaiian language from the school system, the educational domain of society.

But it still survives in the newspapers, in the churches, Hawaiian churches, and the arts.

Hula had recently made a comeback at that time and mele Hawai'i never really faded out.

In fact, it was booming.

Hawaiian music took Hawaiian musicians internationally abroad into into very prestigious venues, and arenas, and on tours around the world.

Even though Hawaiian essentially ceased to exist as a mode of communication, it was certainly a mode of musical expression, and kind of took off in spite of that legislation.

(Singing) Lihi Lau Onaona Waianuhea i ka pili poli Aheahe... PAIGE: I think in those times like when we think about when the language was not supported, and oppressed.

You couldn't speak Hawaiian, but we'd like you to sing.

We don't want you to speak your language.

But please come sing at our party and our lu'au.

Right?

So it was acceptable in music, right, because it became a decorative piece.

And within that decorative piece though that's where things still survive.

While they were performing for consumption, at the end of the day if you didn't know what the song was about or you didn't speak the language then actually it wasn't for you.

It was for us.

It was for the people in the audience who knew.

It was for the practitioners who are carrying down a legacy but also these traditions that are hundreds of years old.

And so while being commodified and while society was picking and choosing when it was appropriate for us to be Hawaiian, underneath all of that, as we continue to practice things then we still carry the torch.

(Singing) I ali'i no 'oe i kanaka au la Malalo aku au a'o ko leo la oo oo oo oo oo oo... PAIGE: Kaona's an integral tool for Hawaiian music.

It's the way that we're able to convey multiple messages in one verse, in one sentence, in one line.

That's, I think, at the core of what makes Hawaiian music, Hawaiian.

From traditional to modern and contemporary, is the way that we're able to weave multiple meanings into just a few words.

KAINANI: Hawaiian musicians, Hawaiian singers, storytellers, they all play a significant role in the continuation of our legacy of Hawaiian music.

Mele is integral to the lifeline of Hawai'i.

That's one of the ways that we continue our tradition.

Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana la I ali'i no oe... RAIATEA: When I first started playing and performing Hawaiian music, I was not very familiar with names such as Mekia Kealakai, Joseph Kekuku, and the Kawaihau Glee Club.

Yet these Hawaiian musicians and their contemporaries envisioned a revolutionary way of playing the guitar— one that would go on to shape blues, country, bluegrass, and other popular music genres.

KILIN: So these Hawaiian string bands—the Kawaihau Glee Club, that was under the directorship of Mekia Kealakai, Joseph Kekuku, the inventor of the Hawaiian steel guitar method —they all left about 1904, 1905.

And they landed in San Francisco, which was a return trip for most of these musicians, many of whom had been members of the Royal Hawaiian band on those earlier tours.

And they land in San Francisco.

Joseph Kekuku, the first thing he does he starts teaching.

He starts educating people about his new, radical new technique of playing the guitar, not held in the Spanish style, but rather placed on the lap and played with a steel bar that he had actually crafted himself.

That is just a revelation for people.

VO: Mr. Kekuku is conceded to be the world's greatest solo guitarist.

He is the genius of that seductive slurring of the notes as they softly swirl like incense from the strings.

Even after the notes have departed from the instrument with taste and delicacy of a sweet thought, they form an echo chorus that seems to sing the racial poetry of the Hawaiians— a people whose very language is a song.

Williston Graphic, Williston, North Dakota, August 24th, 1916.

KILIN: These musicians who were touring across the West Coast, really from Mexico all the way to Alaska, most of them were veterans of troupes that had toured to the continental United States, in 1899, the Omaha World's Fair in 1901, the Buffalo World's Fair.

And they had become really well traveled, worldly musicians at that point, that could play classical, or they could play Bach and Verdi and Strauss and all these kind of European traditions they could do, a lot of Mexican influence was to be had in that music.

And they're able to sight read from their experience in the Royal Hawaiian band, but they're also able to improvise.

And that's something that the public really seems to start to respond to, as we've looked through these newspaper accounts.

There's an energy and spontaneity in these Hawaiian troupes that people have never heard before.

(Instrumental music) KILIN: One really critical moment in the story is 1915.

The San Francisco Panama Pacific International Exposition happens.

So along the waterfront, where Golden Gate Park is, was a huge second city fabricated out of stucco and the most grand architectural styles that you can imagine— fountains, electric lights, and at this fair, the Hawaiian musicians kind of stole the show.

And 200 different Hawaiian musicians and ensembles performed at that exhibition over the course of 1915.

And it's been said that 19 million people passed through those fairgrounds and most of them stopped and heard this Hawaiian string band style featuring the 'ukulele, featuring the Hawaiian steel guitar.

And that set this profound infatuation or interest in, what is this Hawaiian music.

And industry, of course, stringed instrument manufacturers, picked up on this and so within a few months you have Sears and Roebuck in Chicago, you have all these American string instrument manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon and building copies of these Hawaiian instruments.

Building copies of the 'ukulele, of the steel stringed Hawaiian guitar.

And these Hawaiian musicians become celebrated.

And people like Henry Ford all of the sudden, won't travel without his Hawaiian quartet.

VO: Listening to your boys sing and play the sweet Hawaiian music has made me desirous of enabling our people in Detroit the same pleasure.

Formal offer letter to Kailimai Quintet from Henry Ford, 1915.

HARRY: So everybody was playing 'ukulele and the steel guitar caught on and so did the hula.

So then you had all these traveling shows, some of them authentic from Hawai'i and many of them not so authentic, vaudevillian type.

And this was going on and all of a sudden all kinds of things were happening and Hawaiian music was really going through an incredible period of growth.

(Instrumental music) JOHN: Joseph Kekuku's story is really interesting because there has been a longstanding folklore in Hawai'i that attributes Joseph Kekuku to the origination of the idea of, of steel guitar.

But there were also always competing theories involving other individuals as well, or even involving how Joseph Kekuku came to the idea itself of using a steel bar to run along the strings of his guitar.

Some of those stories have been resolved, but they're also family stories that in some cases contradict a bit of the folklore.

I mean there's, there's a story of Joseph Kekuku, walking along a railroad tracks, and he comes across a railroad spike or a bolt, and starts kind of running the bolt on the strings.

Kaiwa Meyer disagreed with that.

The story that was shared with her by her family was that he was spending time with his cousin, Sam Nainoa, a really accomplished violinist.

One day they were sitting at the store in La'ie, on the front porch, and Sam Nainoa had his violin, as he always did, and and Jospeh was strumming his guitar and leaned over and this metal comb fell out of his pocket and hit the strings and then he began kind of looking at ways in which to create sound with that metal comb.

And some of the stories gravitate towards his inspiration from Sam Nainoa's violin playing.

And it's an interesting relationship because when you think about the sound of violin strings that are not hindered by frets that are really fluid that form these kind of micro tonal relationships that are severed otherwise by frets on a fretted instrument that really mimic the vocal stylings of a singer.

Then that connection between the violin playing and steel guitar playing with kind of that similarly fluid sound that moves across even the narrow dimensions separating the frets on a fretted instrument, that all kind of becomes clear.

And then when you begin to look at hula ku'i music that was becoming all the rage in Hawaii in the 1880s, the vocal acrobatics that singers would go through in terms of the falsetto work of kind of leaping across the notes, and these really extraordinary vocal exercises.

(Vocalizing in Hawaiian) JOHN: Then you begin to hear that in the sound of steel playing in the chiming harmonic techniques that really take off in immediate association with the origins of steel guitar.

And it all points to this extraordinary moment in Hawaiian music making when it seemed like everything was possible and so much innovation was taking place in that moment.

(Yoddling) (Singing) It's that Hawaiian cowboy!

Give 'em Barney (Instrumental music) (Singing) Oh I'm headed for that last round up 'Auhea wale 'oe te wahine holo lio E like kou holo 'ana me ka 'o'io la Ke kolo, ke kuli, ke ku'i kolo iho 'oe 'Auhea wale 'oe te wahine holo lio San Francisco by the Golden Gate Aloha it's that Hawaiian cowboy.

Ulu lei lei lehua 'o na lei lei u'i e... KILIN: I was doing research at the Library of Congress and struck up a conversation with the librarian at the American Folklife Center and he said, you know, we have these old Hawaiian recordings, these old 78s, made by this small record company, the American Record Company, and he said, would you like to hear 'em, you know, we can pull them out.

(Recording) Moani Ke 'Ala, by the Royal Hawaiian Troubadours for American Records.

(Instrumental music) (Singing) 'Auhea 'o moani ke 'ala Hoapili o mi nei... KILIN: When I heard it, I just, kind of fell out of my chair because to my ear, having played bluegrass and roots American folk music, it sounded like what I would call an Appalachian string band, where you have multiple conversations happening between the instruments in real time all together.

But the fellow told me that me that this was from 1904.

1904 in the recorded catalogue of any style of music is extremely early.

Possibly, you could say, it's the first recording of a indigenous ensemble style.

And the fact that it was so similar to what I thought of as bluegrass but it was recorded about a quarter century before anything resembling bluegrass or country had been captured really blew me away.

(Singing) he pono keia Au e ho'apa'apa mai nei E wiki mai 'oe i pono kaua I 'olu ho'i au e ke hoa JOHN: What also emerges when you dig into that research is the fact that guitars with steel strings really had not become available to any significant extent in the US or in the Deep South until really the first decade of the 20th century.

Prior to that, guitars, if they were available, were strung with gut strings.

Now, steel strings are fundamental to the origination of the Hawaiian steel guitar.

And interestingly, steel strings are adopted by Hawaiian musicians decades earlier than this, going back to the 1860s.

And you find advertisements for guitar strings in the 1870s that are steel in the islands.

And so it became a preference of Hawaiian players long before we really see that preference emerging in other parts of the world.

And what Joseph Kekuku and that first generation of players really demonstrated was the fact that you could really make music by running that steel object along those steel strings, that you could create a sound of music that is compatible with multiple genres of music making.

DOM: And you find this sort of proliferation of this beautiful sounding guitar.

Like I said, one, if you, if you can figure out (plays guitar) Before an electric guitar that's the best way you can get to almost a transcendental note that goes higher than the western notation scale says is possible on a guitar.

But, with that bar (plays guitar) you can just keep it going.

And I think that that's something that even 'til this day I think that's one of the reason people love that style of guitar playing just because you can get those high notes on it.

And then you can also just get a beautiful tone that's different from any other style of guitar playing.

JOHN: It's not simply that they're creating a sound effect.

It's actually that they're creating musical technology that really can provide melody that can provide a replication of the sound of a vocal melody or a violin playing or what have you.

And it's that technology, that demonstration of what's possible.

That was so significant, when these Hawaiian musicians and the first generation really began kind of circulating and performing all over eventually the world.

No one was really playing guitar as a lead melodic instrument at that time until Hawaiians came along.

(Instrumental music) RAIATEA: For decades the stories of these influential musicians have remained tucked away in the annals of history.

However, in recent years, efforts in Hawai'i and on the continent have focused on digitizing newspapers and making them accessible online, uncovering firsthand accounts that illustrate the remarkable impact and prolific contributions of these early Hawaiian pioneers.

KAINANI: Our ali'i knew the importance of literacy, of reading and writing and being able to document and use the newspapers as this vessel of documenting the histories.

We were the most literate nation.

And it came from our people being innovators and accepting these new technologies and running with it.

And so we are the most fortunate island group to have volumes of written histories from the newspapers.

Our resoures are pretty rich.

KAUWILA: Nupepa or Hawaiian language newspapers have quite literally millions of pages of composition.

Almost every single newspaper publishing has at least one or two mele in it.

Some people believe that we've only scratched maybe 8% of all the nupepa that have been documented, that still exist that haven't disintegrated.

And so when we look at nupepa Hawai'i, it isn't just some small rinky dink like, oh, Hawaiians had newspapers and that's how they wrote songs to each other.

Within this vast resource is 100,000 leagues of composition that is waiting for us to reconnect with it.

(Singing) A he leo no pupu kani 'oe Ua lanakila 'o Kawaihau KAUWILA: And if you look at newspapers in places like the South or like New York, or wherever Kanaka Maoli are going, they also document where Kanaka Maoli were playing music.

JOHN: And this became a real game changer for my research on Hawaiian guitar because I could track musicians as they began moving from town to town because advertisments would feature in these newspapers for coming attractions.

There were listings for tent shows, for vaudeville performances, and it's through these resources that we can track folks like Joseph Kekuku who begins traveling around the U.S. as well as Europe.

It's how we can really understand, as well, that Hawaiian musicians, entertainers were not simply playing in the big cities.

They're playing in every little town that was on those entertainment circuits which was everywhere.

And so this was a really astonishing discovery for me because it was at this moment where I could see to the degree to which, for example, Hawaiian musician were infiltrating entertainment circuits in not only places like California or the East Coast but in places like Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama.

I found additional archival materials for some of those entertainment circuits that also revealed itineraries, tour diaries that enabled all of us to see a much bigger story of the degree to which Hawaiian music was spreading and Hawaiian entertainers were traveling in the early 20th century.

KILIN: So our research has really traced the origins of the world's most famous guitars to the Hawaiian kingdom.

And this is a guitar that I'm humbled to be sitting next to.

It's a guitar that was owned by Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole.

And it was made specifically for him by a man named Manuel Nunes.

And Manuel Nunes is a very historic and significant figure in the history of luthiery.

He gets credited with having invented the 'ukulele.

And he came to Hawai'i in 1879.

And set up shop in the waterfront district of Honolulu, just a little away from the palace.

And before long, he was building new instruments out of Hawaiian koa wood.

And as you can see, this is some of the most stunning koa that I've ever seen.

This was made about 1910, custom made for Prince Kuhio.

And for those of you who know Prince Kuhio, he had a very iconic handlebar mustache.

And I think that this might have been Manuel Nunes's tribute to the mustache.

We know now that the Hawaiian Kingdom for any musician who had the means, most of the time would prefer to play Martin guitars.

What this is in its design is sort of an interpretation or evolution of what the Martin Company was doing in the 19th century.

And this guitar features a very deep body, if you can see the dimensions from front to back, much deeper than the average guitar of its of its day.

The other thing is it's built with a flat saddle and nut which means it probably was being played on the lap in the style of Joseph Kekuku, the Hawaiian lap steel style.

So this guitar, Manuel Nunes, was a famous builder of instruments that in 1915 when the craze of Hawaiian music hit the continental United States, the Martin guitar company was asked to build instruments under the brand name of Manuel Nunes, and those guitars that they made for the Southern California Music Company were the first regular production steel string guitars made by the Martin guitar company.

And there's a shift that was really directly connected to the Hawaiian string movement and the technique of playing on one's lap with a steel bar.

In 1915, the Martin company partner with a musician named Major Kealakai and he asks them to build a bigger, louder, you have the depth of the Kuhio Nunes guitar here.

A little big longer, a little bit wider, longer scale, even the sound hole here was bigger.

And he asked them to build this guitar because he needed a louder instrument to play for the concert halls, the vaudeville theaters where he was trying to reach thousands of people with his acoustic guitar.

This guitar ensured that the person sitting at the back of that concert hall got their money's worth.

And this guitar made in 1916 for Major Kealakai shortly thereafter was rebranded the Ditson Dreadnought.

And the Dreadnought acoustic guitar today is the most famous, widely used, and copied guitar design in the world.

And it was originally meant to be played on the lap, like this.

Now Joseph Kekuku, who was a childhood friend of Major Kealakai, he was a student at Kamehameha Schools in 1892 where he fashioned the first steel bar.

People in Hawai'i, for quite a while, had been playing either with a comb or a pocket knife but Kekuku was the first to really perfect the technique with this steel bar.

And (strums guitar) what happens when you play with a steel bar, in the one hand, you simplify the ability 'cause you don't have four fingers to play a multitude of notes, you only have the one bar.

But the other thing that happens is you get the ability, (plays guitar) like a violin or like a trombone to slide (plays guitar) to slide into notes.

And that's what's been described as a more vocal, a more human quality to the guitar.

Now what was Joseph Kekuku playing when he first conceived of this technique?

We've done some research into the early setlists of performances that he did in 1900, 1901 and there's a song that we also found sheet music in Queen Lili'uokalani's collection— and it's called the Spanish Fandango.

And I kind of wonder if when Joseph Kekuku first sat down in 1886 or so, it might have sounded something like this.

(Instrumental guitar music) (laughs) JOHN: One of the big questions that I had, and I just didn't know the answer to it, was what is the relationship between Hawaiian steel guitar and blues slide guitar?

Scholars of blues music, since the 1960s, had steadfastly argued that the slide guitar idea of moving bottleneck or a piece of tubing that they would place on their fingers, that this technology was unique to African American experiences.

That it was embedded in the middle passage.

That it was essentially what they called in the 1960s an Africanism.

The idea that this was a technology that had migrated with enslaved people from the continent of Africa, and West Africa in particular, in those locations to North America and South America and Central America.

So this was the understood origin of that technology among folklorist and music researchers.

And there is a lot of testimony, for example, of the development of the diddly bow, which is essentially an object where you would tie a kind of a wire from a porch railing to the ground.

And you could run a bottle, for example, along that wire, or you'd even build a little instrument, you know, where you run a wire across the top of it, tighten it up with screws, and then run a bottle on top of it producing kind of the glissando sound that's associated with Hawaiian music.

And so this was, kind of, the lore and this was the stated understanding, and it's what I believed 'cause I didn't, I'd never really taken a close look at this.

And no one had really taken a close look at it, to be honest.

And so, um, but what I discovered was a, was very different.

When I, when I began digging into the historical record, looking at those newspapers, looking at accounts, testimony from blues artists, country musicians.

A different story emerged.

One that was contrary to what we had previously believed and understood about the origins, for example of the blues slide guitar.

And the difference was that what we find in historical record is that Hawaiian musicians were everywhere in the Deep South, and that they were recording music with the slide guitar and playing slide guitar and having journalists local to the south reporting on their playing and how they play their instruments a couple of decades before we find anyone from the South who's not Hawaiian playing slide guitar, or Hawaiian guitar, or otherwise.

And so that sort of upends, a little bit the narrative of the origins, or the relationship between the emergence of Hawaiian steel guitar playing in the Deep South through these Hawaiian troupes and otherwise, and with the development of this slide guitar technique.

(Instrumental Music) KAUWILA: Because our people are people of color and often times are having to play together and are traveling in troupes together, we're probably influencing each other's sound very greatly.

And that's also going to obviously impact the types of instruments and rhythms and feelings that we incorporate into our music.

I think it's completely possible that African-Americans in the South had their own instruments that were very similar to steel guitar, and some historians would argue that they already had a steel guitar, but I also think that there's evidence that we were influencing each other, interweaving our cultures, and finding new ways celebrate sound and music to share these really important stories that we knew we had a message to share with the world that only we could do in our own sound.

But we found ways to interweave the types of sounds that were so haunting for each other's cultures and finding ways to bring that and incorporate that in our own songs.

And sharing that with each other.

(Blues music) (Singing) Yeah, got a letter this morning How you reckon it read?

JOHN: When you look at the accounts of people describing the music making of the South at the time, if you look at interviews with Son House, from 1965, when Son House who's revered as one of these originators of the blues slide guitar style.

When he's asked where he first heard that style of playing, the slide guitar, he interjects, oh you mean the Hawaiian way of playing?

(Singing) I said have to change my way of livin' so I don't have to cry no more.

(Applause) JOHN: When you're looking at these interviews of early blues artists and you're really looking closely to determine the relationship of Hawaiian music making to the origins of the delta blues slide guitar, that's the story that begins to emerge.

And I hadn't expected that.

TERRI GROSS: And you also loved Hawaiian guitar.

How did you hear Hawaiian guitar and how did it, why was it so exciting to you?

It was another sound you tried to emulate.

B.B.

KING: Well I'd hear it on the radio.

I would hear the Hawaiian sound or the country music players played steel and slide guitars, if you will.

And I hear that, to me a steel guitar is one of the sweetest sounds this side of heaven.

I still like it and that was one of the things that I tried to do so much, was to imitate that, that sound.

I could never get it.

I still haven't been able to do it.

And that was the beginning of the trill on my hand.

(Instrumental music) TAJ: My earliest recollection of Hawaiian music, my dad had a radio that had some presets on it— Tokyo, Paris, London, it also had Honolulu.

And one day, as a kid, I just punched in and this incredible music came out.

To this day I can still look back and remember the feeling.

It was like every nerve, every molecule, just every part of existence was filled with this incredible music.

(Instrumental music) TAJ: I noticed an awful lot of string bands back in the early 20th century, particularly, that had 'ukuleles in them.

You know, there'd be a guitar, a fiddle, and an 'ukulele.

You know, and this was mountain music or, or some kind of jug band music, or whatever old timey, both black and, and Anglo bands.

And then the whole slide thing, how did that get to the Mississippi Delta?

Traveling Hawaiian troupes, people heard that sound, saw how it was done, and tried to do it the best way they knew how.

DOM: We tend to think of a lot of music in terms of white and black.

And when it comes to black music, and the old-time blues.

You have slide guitar.

And then on the other side you have country music which tends to be synonymous with with the southern white people of the United States and they created their own version.

But once you begin to start delving deeper into this history and go between the, the surface layers, you start to find Hawaiian music has an influence within those two major styles.

JOHN: Some of the most significant early country music, musicians, practitioners all learned of steel guitar by observing Hawaiian players.

(Instrumental Music) So some of those first and most critically important steel players in country music actually in many cases are Hawaiian.

Jimmie Rodgers recorded with four Native Hawaiian steel players on his recordings and he's considered to be, essentially a patriarchal figure of country music as an entire genre.

(Singing) I had longed for you dear and wanted you near You are the girl of my dreams.

JOHN: And you keep going, I mean, you look at Jerry Byrd who was a foundational steel player in country music.

Same for Bob Dunn who played for Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies, the first non-Hawaiian to record electric guitar.

Before that the first people recording electric guitar were Hawaiian musicians in the early 1930s.

(Instrumental music) PHIL KERR: Now before we have some more music, just a word or two about Sol Ho'opi'i.

He was born in the Hawaiian Islands.

He came to this country and established a reputation for himself in Hollywood.

In fact, he was universally recognized as the world's greatest Hawaiian musician.

He was the originator, by the way, of this electric guitar that he's playing.

(Instrumental music) JOHN: When you begin digging in to that history you begin seeing this profound influence of Hawaiian players on all sorts of vernacular genres, but certainly in the Deep South.

They demonstrate a competency for applying an object to a standard six string Spanish guitar that inspires folks like Son House and Robert Johnson and others, to take up the idea and to also make something different with it, to begin to play in a different way to hold it differently to try different techniques for forming that slide.

But there's far more evidence that demonstrates Hawaiian influence on all of this vernacular music making in the South, then you're find going in any other direction.

(Instrumental music) JERRY: Well my first exposure, I guess you could say, to steel guitar, we called it Hawaiian steel guitar back where I came from in Ohio.

Was in the early 30s when the tent shows would tour all over the United States, especially in the middle section of the United States.

And it cost a dollar to get in.

And I'll never forget that because at that time I had never seen a dollar.

I think I was about 11 years old.

So we went in and it was a troupe of Hawaiians.

And I hadn't been in there I guess two minutes, and down on the left end was a gentleman seated playing this shiny metal instrument, and making these gorgeous sounds.

And it hypnotized me.

I don't know why.

And I don't think I heard anything else that day except that instrument.

They were about eight in the troupe and of course the backdrop was a canvas one with volcanoes erupting and palm trees, you know, and that exotic stuff, to set the mood.

And uh, so that was the day that changed my life.

Even at that early age because I fell in love with that instrument and it's never washed off.

(Guitar music) RAIATEA: The more I learned about this profound impact that Hawaiian musicians had on the evolution of modern music the more I wanted to share their stories and so I partnered with Kilin Reece, Ha'alilio Solomon and their non-profit, Kealakai Center for Pacific Strings, which is named for Major Mekia Kealakai and recorded an album that pays tribute to those early Hawaiian musical pioneers.

We tried to capture the spirit and sound of the music that was born here in the last days of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

(String music) (Singing) A heaha kou makemake... HA'ALILIO: It absolutely reaffirms the vibrancy of Hawaiian music in the 19th century.

How advanced the compositions were, the arrangements were, the poetry was.

And it's a big, significant statement that Raiatea's making for having chosen 10 songs, nine of which come from the 19th century and only one is a modern composition.

(Singing) ka la'i Wehiwehi 'oe e... HA'ALILIO: And so we're bringing back that standard, the older the better.

'Cause we have that history that was so vibrant and rich and so mainstream at that time.

And at some point, it faded into obscurity.

And to release that in 2023 sends an important message, that those songs are still relevant.

That style, musical style, poetic style is still the standard.

(Singing) E moani ke 'ala... KILIN: For our nonprofit organization, which is dedicated to the research, restoration and celebration of Hawaii's enduring legacy in the musical arts and luthiery.

Working with an artist like Raiatea Helm has been an incredible opportunity for us to share the research that we've done.

The translation work and gleaning of firsthand accounts from these Hawaiian language newspapers of these musicians.

It's allowed us to take all of that and combine it with the transcriptions from these early records, and through Raiatea's, you know, brilliance to bring it to the forefront and to bring it forward in time.

And we've also been really lucky to call on some of our friends from Nashville, that I know through my work in bluegrass music, and invite them to come with us on this this string journey.

We've shared these early recording with them.

We've shared these newspaper accounts, these photographs, and they're all discovering their own musical lineage and their own origin story.

(Singing) We sing one song for my old Kentucky home for my old Kentucky home...

ROB: We didn't know this.

I mean, we've been playing this music all our lives but I just, honestly in the last few years, I feel like I've learned these Hawaiian musicians really helped give birth to American music as we know it.

(Instrumental music) ROB: The early Hawaiian string bands were very similar to the early bluegrass bands.

Just the way they played those open chords and the rhythm styles that they played, it sounded like early bluegrass for sure.

Carter family, you know, Jimmie Rodgers, you can tell that these Hawaiian musicians had an incredible influence on what became, you know, American music.

JUSTIN BRANUM: I can say, for the fiddle, you know, without steel guitar, without that influence, contemporary fiddle would not be what it is today.

The influence on the fiddle went directly from Hawai'i, I guess, into bluegrass.

Very, very, very important, you couldn't over- state the importance of that.

KILIN: It's becoming clear that, you know, American musical roots have been dipping into this Pacific aquifer for a long, long time.

RAIATEA: Yeehaw!

(Singing) Ha'aheo O'ahu la lei i ka 'ilima la Kuahiwi nani la 'o Ka'ala... JOHN: Studying the steel guitar deeply unsettles everything that we all thought that we knew about music making in the world and in the country.

There's a profound connectivity that emerges in our understanding of music making that really is fundamentally aligned with the trajectories of discovery and exploration that have always been associated with Native Hawaiian people.

And so music making is another instance really of that circumnavigation of those journeys of exploration, and of knowledge finding and discovery.

So for me, you know, music really helped me to better understand not only the history of Hawaiian people, but the deep connections that they forged and established and shaping the modern world as we know it today.

That's the kind of lesson that we all can learn from.

The assumptions that many folks have carried about influences of music making this case of culture, cultural traditions, can be very easily unsettled once you start looking.

Once you start paying attention to the historical record, and seeing that it's, in fact, a far more rich and complicated story.

And so, there's much that we can learn from those musicians who very bravely left their homes in a period of total turmoil and chaos, in some instances in the 1890s.

And, and made decisions to actually celebrate their traditions by traveling the world and sharing them with one another, with the people that they encountered, sharing their knowledge, sharing their traditions, and also using their music making on many occasions to take a stand when they needed to in defense of the kingdom and defense of their causes.

And so it's a story that can really help us to understand so many different layers of what's important in life, whether it's culture, tradition, sovereignty, all these facets of life that had been so important to the Hawaiian people forever.

(Singing) E mau ka maluhia O nei pae 'aina Mai Hawai'i a Ni'ihau PAIGE: Hawaiian music is the source and the kumu, or it's the vessel and the conduit for the things that make us Hawaiian.

They remind us what's important, they remind us how we can move through the world and still carry tradition in order to move forward.

(Singing) mau A ma kou mana nui E ola e ola ka mo'i... KAUWILA: Mele Hawai'i, it is the rhythm of sovereignty.

It is the rhythm of genealogy that helps us remember.

Mele is the fulcrum of Hawaiian identity, and can guide us to many possible ways of understanding and unearthing the story, the mo'olelo of our past, but also unearthing the possible futures we can have for the next hundred generations.

(Singing) Ha'awi mai i ke aloha RAIATEA: Hawaiians and those that love Hawaiian music can be proud that in the face of intense upheaval, oppression, and adversity those early Hawaiian troubadours reaffirmed their sovereignty and identity through their songs.

And they did it with aloha and grace in a voice that was distinctly Hawaiian.

(Singing) Ma lalo o kou aloha nui Na Li'i o ke Aupuni Me na maka'ainana Ka lehulehu no a pau Kia'i mai ia lakou Me ke aloha ahonui E ola no makou I kou mana mau E mau ke ea o ka 'aina Ma kou pono mau A ma kou mana nui E ola e ola ka mo'i E ola e ola ka mo'i