Grammys give nominee Natalie Ai Kamauu an opportunity to meet Adele

Natalie Ai Kamauu is hoping to meet two special people when she attends the 58th Annual Grammy Awards show today at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. One is Hawaii expatriate Bruno Mars. The other is Adele.

“I hear she’s performing, and she is my son Chaz’s favorite singer, so I’m going to bring a lei,” said Kamauu, who, has a chance to join the two musical superstars, as a Grammy winner.

The connection between Kamauu and Adele actually goes a little deeper than having a fan in the family. Kamauu’s Grammy-nominated album, “La La La La,” includes a remake of “Make You Feel My Love,” written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1997 but introduced to a broader audience as an introspective ballad by Adele on her debut album “19.”

“It hadn’t been remade for several years, and then she came out with it and it blew up again — of course, because she’s Adele.”

Kamauu will also be bringing a lei for Mars, but “if I meet Adele,” she giggled, sounding like a big fan herself, “my life can be over at that point ’cause then my son will just think that his mom is the cutest and the coolest because I gave a lei to the cutest and coolest Adele.”

Kamauu and her musician husband, guitarist-vocalist Io Kamauu, have been racking up frequent-flier miles in recent months. They’ve been spending a lot of time performing in Japan, but this weekend their commute added another leg and they continued on to Los Angeles.

Four of her previous albums have won Na Hoku Hanohano awards, but she didn’t expect “La La La La” would break through as a Grammy finalist.

Whatever the outcome at the Grammys today, history has been made. With Keali‘i Reichel’s “Kawaiokalena” also on the final ballot in the regional roots album category, this is the first year that two Hawaiian albums have made the cut in the same year. The category was created in 2011 after separate categories for Hawaiian, Cajun, Native American, polka and zydeco music were eliminated and the genres were grouped together as one.

Until this year’s Grammys, one might have suspected there was an unofficial quota of one Hawaiian album finalist per year. Past regional roots finalists include George Kahumoku Jr., a three-time Grammy Award-winning record producer, in 2012; Weldon Kekauoha in 2013; Kahulanui, an octet from the Big Island, in 2014; and Kamaka Kukona in 2015. Daniel Ho, born and raised in Hawaii but now a resident of Los Angeles, was a finalist in the world music category last year.

This year’s other three regional roots finalists are “Go Go Juice,” by Jon Cleary, “Get Ready,” by the Revelers, and “Generations,” by Windwalker and the MCW. Cleary is a New Orleans-based funk and R&B musician; the Revelers, also from Louisiana, play Cajun, zydeco and what is known as “swamp pop”; Windwalker and the MCW is a Native American traditional drum performance group.

Reichel was a finalist for best Hawaiian music album in 2005. “Kawaiokalena,” released late in 2014, won seven Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, including album of the year and male vocalist of the year, in 2015.

If Reichel wins he will be the first Hawaiian recording artist to win a Hoku and Grammy for the same album.

Kamauu came to music by way of hula. Her parents, Howard and Olana Ai, formed the Halau Hula Olana in 1975. She had been dancing with the halau for 10 years when her father decided it was time for the troupe to start performing with live musicians instead of using records. Kamauu said she was pulled out of the dance line, given an ukulele and expected to do her best.

Her transition from dancer to singer, musician and recording artist began there, although she represented Halau Hula Olana twice in Miss Aloha Hula competition at the Merrie Monarch Festival, winning the title in 1990. She met her future husband and business partner later that same year. Io Kamauu was a disc jockey at KCCN, and he played a Christmas song she’d recorded with veteran studio engineer Dave Tucciarone. When she called to thank him for playing her song, he tried to keep the conversation going, but she had things to do and wouldn’t give him her phone number.

A week later she called him back. They were married in 1991.

With his encouragement and active support, Natalie Ai Kamauu recorded her first album, “‘E,” in 2005. It won Kamauu her first Hoku Award for female vocalist of the year, and her next two albums won female vocalist honors as well.

“La La La La” was released after the 2015 Hoku Awards and is almost guaranteed to be on the final ballot for the local music industry awards in May.

Traveling from Japan, Kamauu and her husband had a three-hour layover in Honolulu on Saturday and then continued to L.A., where a reception for nominees was held Sunday. “I’ll just kind of make it there for the reception, and then the next day is the Grammys. My mom and dad are coming, and the kids and my brother.”

Win or lose at the Grammys, “La La La La” has a special place in Kamauu’s heart. She and Io recorded it while son Chaz, now 23, was doing his two-year mission as a Mormon missionary in West Virginia. Their only contact was a weekly telephone call.

Kamauu said she and her husband had always encouraged their children — Chaz and his sister, Sha-Lei, who is two years younger — to provide feedback on their music as each album was being recorded. Making “La La La La” without her son’s input was like working with “one of my arms cut off.”

She said they made up for the lost time by listening to “La La La La” from beginning to end on his second day home.

“The whole album is based around the song ‘Shower Tree,’ and the title, ‘La La La La,’ comes from the chorus of the song. I really think when I listen back to it that it really sounds like I’m singing for Chaz. The fourth song, ‘The First Lady of Waikiki,’ was the song he sang at Kamehameha Schools, and ‘Make You Feel My Love’ is by Adele, his favorite singer. So many of the songs return to him.”