Documentary profiles musician Martin Pahinui

“Martin Pahinui: The Golden Voice”

(Masters of Hawaiian Music Film Series)

“Martin Pahinui: The Golden Voice,” a documentary film released in 2015 and currently available on DVD, is an excellent look at the life and unique career of Hawaiian musician Martin Pahinui, Gabby Pahinui’s multitalented youngest son, who died in May at the age of 65. It is a welcome memento of a remarkable life and particularly timely.

“The Golden Voice” is just one of the contributions filmmaker and Grammy Award-winning record producer George Kahumoku Jr. has made to the preservation and perpetuation of Hawaiian music. The film is part of a series profiling some of Kahumoku’s colleagues.

Kahumoku and director David Barry show commendable restraint in letting Pahinui do most of the talking, cutting back and forth between several recent interviews, without a celebrity interviewer breaking in. Pahinui talks at length about growing up in Waimanalo, his career as a musician, his feelings about being Hawaiian, and how his father always encouraged him to follow his own road when it came to the music he chose to play — be it rock, pop or Hawaiian.

Kahumoku and Barry do without the media figures often seen as “talking heads” in local documentaries and instead share the thoughts of people whose observations are personally relevant: Randy Lorenzo, who preceded Pahinui on bass, and Bobby Hall of the Peter Moon Band, along with Leo Anderson Akana, who wrote songs for the band; George Kuo and Aaron Mahi, who long played with Pahinui in Waikiki; “Hawaii Calls” singer and musician Nina Kealiiwahamana, who performed with him; Dancing Cat label head George Winston and producer Steve Siegfried, who recorded Pahinui; and Pahinui’s sons, Gabby and Kale.

The documentary gives extra time to two songs that are milestones in Pahinui’s career. “Cane Fire!” is a logical choice because Pahinui was the lead vocalist on the song and it was the biggest hit off the Peter Moon Band’s biggest album.

The Pahinui Brothers’ recording of “Jealous Guy” is significant even though it is not as well known. Pahinui was the one who decided that he and his brothers should record it; he then recorded the demo arrangement that persuaded producer Ry Cooder to greenlight the song.

This DVD is important for two other reasons. First, from the time he joined the Peter Moon Band in the 1980s, Pahinui was usually seen playing electric bass. Here we see him playing slack-key guitar. Second, because the full-length performances shot on the beach in Waimanalo and included here — Pahinui singing and accompanying himself on slack key — capture his unique voice, his playing style, his personality and his soul so beautifully.

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