Martin Luther described music as a soul-calming prophetic art made for nurturing the soul — a magnificent and delightful gift from the heavens. ADVERTISING Martin Luther described music as a soul-calming prophetic art made for nurturing the soul — a
Martin Luther described music as a soul-calming prophetic art made for nurturing the soul — a magnificent and delightful gift from the heavens.
Meleuhane, the Big Island father and son musical duo agree. Descended from five generations of paniolo cowboys, musicians and composers, Keikilani and Leokani Lindsey are heralded as Hawaii’s newest world music artists. They celebrate their love of ohana and culture with unique interpretations of classic compositions, along with new original mele and traditional Hawaiian favorites.
“I was raised on the Big Island,” said Keikilani Lindsey. “My grandfather came from Molakai. My grandmother and my dad are from Oahu. My parents are both musical, and perform regularly at the Four Seasons Hualalai. I’ve learned everything from them and it’s carried on into my songwriting. My dad’s a killer songwriter.”
Keikilani Lindsey’s first full-length album, “Meleuhane,” debuted in mele.com’s Top 10 for February 2014. It features 11 original songs composed by Keikilani and renowned Kumu Keoni Atkinson.
With their deep affection for the Hawaiian language, the Lindseys bring a unique vision to Hawaiian songwriting as they join a new generation of Hawaiian stortytellers.
“Our first CD, Meleuhane, was submitted for consideration for a Na Hoku award,” said Keikilani Lindsey. “We’ve met all the criteria for several categories and we’re still waiting for the preliminary results. If we clear that top five in any category we will be official Na Hoku nominees and that’s very exciting for us.”
Currently, Meleuhane is working on its next CD with Grammy Award-winning engineer and co-producer, Ron Pendragon, and preparing their second release, The Garden. The new CD will mark the first official release for Meleuhane as a duo, and will feature seven original songs and many guest artists, including Cyril Pahinui, Michael Ruff and John Cruz.
“It’s going to be all songs about Kauai,” said Keikilani Lindsey. “I wrote five of them with a friend of mine, Puni Patrick, a woman in Kauai who is a hula student and a student of oli Hawaii — the language. I was looking for a common thread with the songs and basically all of her songs were about Kauai, so I decided to make an album of songs about Kauai. She brought forth this chant that was once used to teach children the alphabet. It’s really interesting and has its own little melody within the chant. I played with it and put some chords to it , and it turned out really nice.”
The duo also chose some cover songs for their new album, but wanted to find some tunes that other artists didn’t over use. They went with covers by Nick Castillo and Kealii Blaisdell that they felt worked well with their concept. They also teamed up with Pahinui to include a traditional song on the new release. Last November, Meleuhane was featured at Pahinui’s Seattle Slack Key Festival.
They then approached local musical icon John Cruz about using one of his new original songs as the album’s bonus track.
“We brought John Cruz into the studio to sing some background and play guitar on the song he co-wrote on my new album,” said Keikilani Lindsey. “It was really cool to be in the studio with him. He’s a cool cat.”
Clearly humbled by the talent of those who chose to join him on his next album, Keikilani Lindsey exudes gratitude to those who have collaborated with him and his son to create something that eloquently shares his love of family and of Hawaii.
“I created Meleuhane because I was introducing this concept of collaborating and working together to create something great and beautiful,” said Keikilani Lindsey. “That’s what this album is all about. It’s about bringing people together. I don’t play all the instruments on this album, it’s not about me. It’s a huge group of people who are in love with the ideas and the concepts of the songs and the intent, which is to be artists and reach out to people — to create something better than ourselves. I mean, I can write a song and it can sound good, but it’s nothing compared to what we have created lately. Our heavenly father has definitely given us the inspiration and the gifts to write the words and the music, but He has also brought us into contact with all of these wonderful artists and I feel that it’s really important to showcase that.”
Meleuhane performs every Monday night from 5 to 9 p.m. at Huggo’s on the Rocks in Kona, and Wednesdays from 5 to 9:30 p.m. at Lava Lava Beach Club in Waikoloa. For a complete listing of dates and times, or to purchase a CD, visit meleuhane.com. CDs are also available at Just Ukes in Kona and Waikoloa.
