Their banter entertains and their music resonates. But for well-loved Hawaiian performers Keola Beamer and Raiatea Helm, it’s more than just chemistry that makes their music melodious. It’s passion and a shared respect for culture. Their banter entertains and their
Their banter entertains and their music resonates. But for well-loved Hawaiian performers Keola Beamer and Raiatea Helm, it’s more than just chemistry that makes their music melodious. It’s passion and a shared respect for culture.
Their banter entertains and their music resonates.
But for well-loved Hawaiian performers Keola Beamer and Raiatea Helm, it’s more than just chemistry that makes their music melodious.
It’s passion and a shared respect for culture.
“The thing I love so much about them is they honor Hawaiian music and culture when they perform it — that’s what makes them so special,” Guy A. Sibilla, artistic consultant and producer, said.
Beamer, oscillating between some four guitars during the duo’s recent “Ina” (“Imagine”) concert at the Kaua‘i Community College Performing Arts Center, is a slack-key legend who first played with Helm at the Shinnyo-en/Na Lei Aloha Foundation’s “Diversity Harmony Peace” concert, which was held in association with the foundation’s annual lantern-floating ceremony in Waikiki in 2008 at Ala Moana Beach Park.
Beamer had just lost his mother, Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Beamer, a great source of inspiration to him.
Sibilla said the lantern-floating event brought the two talents together.
“He hadn’t made music for a year, he was so full of sorrow,” Sibilla said. “At this event of honoring and embracing loved ones lost, their chemistry was instantaneous.”
The amalgamation of such talent was bound to create something noteworthy.
Helm, a solo artist from Kalama‘ula, Moloka‘i, and Beamer, composer of “Honolulu City Lights,” have both won Na Hoku Hanohano awards and helped put slack-key guitar, ‘ukulele and balladry on the map. And their new album is already creating a Grammy-nomination buzz.
Though Helm is much newer to the music scene than Beamer, she’s no shrinking violet, and was already nominated for Grammys, in both 2006 and 2008.
Part of the duo’s onstage charm is Beamer’s repetitive allusions to the May-December aspect of their professional relationship.
Referencing how diversity and peace are issues at the forefront of his mind when making and performing music, Beamer introduced his next song as being about Hawai‘i as a “Teflon melting pot.” Of course, he also had to mention the song he was about to sing with his younger performance partner was created “before Raiatea was even conceived,” a running gag throughout the show.
With that, the duo began the humorous and well-loved song, “Mr. San Cho Lee,” which, for those who are unfamiliar, tells the tale of the many different race representations on the islands and the personalities that stereotypically coincide with each.
But for those wanting something with a bit more substance, the two provided it with a series of more-serious and heartfelt range of songs, many of which can be found on their new album, “Keola Beamer & Raiatea.”
The album includes a version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” sung in Hawaiian. Not only is the language unlike the original, but this rendition is played without piano and takes on a fluttery, airy sound with the broad range that Raiatea’s voice embodies, joined by the rich guitar skill of Beamer.
The two spent some 16 months collaborating to create their new album, Sibilla said, which peaked at No. 7 (and is still there) on the Billboard album world music chart.
Other highlights on the album include “A Time for Letting Go,” a wistful, seemingly personal song for Beamer with a pensive sort of quality.
In further homage to the memory of Beamer’s mother, part of the theme of the duo’s recent KCC show asked audience members to “malama ko aloha,” ensuring that all “keep our love” and remember what aloha is all about.
Crowd-pleasers for long-time fans included not only Beamer’s signature song, “Honolulu City Lights,” but more traditional Hawaiian songs such as “‘Ulili e,” a song in which Beamer skillfully imitated the sound of the ‘ulili bird.
“Part of the Hawaiian culture is to sing a lot about nature and the creatures in it,” Beamer said during the show.
Wife Moanalani Beamer, who sporadically joined Beamer and Helm by dancing hula and chanting, opened the second half with the oli “Noho ‘Ana,” another show highlight, followed later by a mo‘olelo about Hi‘iaka, the sister of goddess Pele, and the encounter she has with a quadriplegic woman. In that story, Hi‘iaka gives the woman her lei of hala blossoms out of empathy and puts the woman in a dream of when she was a hula dancer. Powerful, the mo‘olelo was accompanied by Beamer’s emotional storytelling skills and dramatic slack-key guitar, backed up by the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra’s Spring Wind Quintet.
Those interested in purchasing Beamer and Helm’s most recent album can do so on iTunes, amazon.com or at Borders Books, Music & Movies, Sibilla said.
