Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts honors 5 with Lifetime Achievement Awards

The Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts presents its highest honor on Sunday, when five members of the Hawaii music industry receive the HARA Lifetime Achievement Awards.

HARA will also remember the accomplishments of two more island entertainer greats with the presentation of HARA Legacy Awards.

There are no higher awards in Hawaii’s music industry.

HARA’s Na Hoku Hanohano Awards — “the Hokus,” for short — recognize excellence at a particular point in time, in a recording, in the writing of a song, or in the technical arts involved in making a recording and then making it available for sale.

To earn the Lifetime Achievement Award or the Legacy Award requires many years of accomplishments and contributions to Hawaii’s music industry. The awards are not restricted to recording artists although four of this year’s five Lifetime Achievement Award recipients and both Legacy Award honorees have recordings on their resumes.

They represent a variety of talents.

Willie K has been an A-list Hawaiian headliner since he broke into Waikiki in 1991 — to date he is a 16-time Hoku Award-winner.

Al Harrington gave up a safe and secure career teaching at Punahou to take a shot at Waikiki, and not only became a Waikiki showroom headliner but also starred as detective Ben Kokua on the original “Hawaii Five-0.”

Kimo Alama Keaulana became a prize-winning Hawaiian language songwriter at 17 and is widely recognized as an authority on Hawaiian language and composition techniques. An opportunity to catch him performing is not to missed.

Sam Septimo is an old-school Hawaiian musician who played nightclubs, wrote songs and made hit records — while also working a full-time non-musical “day job.”

Mike Kelly is not a recording artist, but his half-century of contributions include owning a 10,000-square-foot Honolulu record store, managing talent, selling radio ads and building a great career as a general manager of Hawaiian radio stations. He is also a Hoku Award-winning record producer.

This year’s Legacy Award recipients also meet the high standards required.

Julita Nani Alapai was the great Hawaiian diva of the early 20th century and among the first Hawaiian singers to record; she will be represented by her hanai great-grandson Thomas K. Lake III.

Martin Pahinui, the youngest of Gabby Pahinui’s talented sons, received seven Hoku Awards for his work with the Peter Moon Band in the 1980s and had a productive career i n the years that followed; he’ll be represented by his wife, Ruthie.

The importance of honoring exceptionally talented people for their long-term contributions to Hawaii’s music industry led to the creation of the Sidney Grayson Awards along with the Hoku Awards in 1978 — the name chosen to honor the owner of KCCN, who was personally committed to having a full-time Hawaiian music radio station in Hawaii. The awards became the Lifetime Achievement Awards in 1987.

Beginning with the 2015-2016 award cycle, eligibility requirements tightened, and Legacy Awards were created to honor island figures who have been dead for a year or longer. No more than five Lifetime Achievement Awards and two Legacy Awards can be presented each year.

Here’s a closer look at the awardees:

AL HARRINGTON

Showroom entertainer, actor, recording artist, songwriter

The story of Al Harrington’s remarkable career starts with some “what ifs?” What if his parents hadn’t gotten a divorce? What if his mother hadn’t come to Hawaii and married a man named Harrington who told the young Samoan boy, born Tausau Ta‘a, that pidgin was OK for outside, but at home you speak standard English? When Harrington, 82, started school, his ability to speak standard English impressed his teachers and helped him excel.

And what if, when Harrington was married and had a family to support, he’d decided to play it safe and continue teaching at Punahou instead of pursuing his dream of headlining a Waikiki showroom? We’ll never know. Harrington followed his dream, convinced the tour industry that he was serious about his craft, and became a Waikiki showroom headliner and recording artist. Then, he was cast as detective Ben Kokua in the original “Hawaii Five-0,” appearing in the role between 1972 and 1975, and became an internationally known television star as well.

WILLIE K

Recording artist, musician, vocalist, songwriter, record producer, actor

When William Awihilima Kahaiali‘i, 57, burst on the local entertainment scene in 1991 — playing Malia’s Cantina on Lewers Street and opening for Dionne Warwick at the Sheraton Waikiki — and then won five Na Hoku Hanohano Awards for his work as recording artist and co-producer of his debut album, “Kahaiali‘i,” a lot of people had no idea he was starting his third decade as a professional entertainer.

Willie produced the make-over of pop singer Amy Gilliom into the foremost female Hawaiian falsetto singer of her generation. The partnership won them several Hoku Awards — including one the year when the rules were changed to re-define the duo of Amy Hanaiali‘i & Willie K as a solo female vocalist (the rule was later struck down).

Willie earned more Hokus as a solo artist and as a member of Barefoot Natives with Amy’s brother, Eric Gilliom. A reunion album with Amy was another Hoku-winner. He took home 16 Hokus — as a solo artist, working with Gilliom and as a member of Barefoot Natives — between 1992 and 2018.

Willie cut back his performance schedule earlier this year, after he was diagnosed with limited stage lung cancer, for which he’s currently in remission; when he played the Blue Note Waikiki earlier this month, he was able to do two shows instead of one.

KIMO ALAMA KEAULANA

Kumu hula, chanter/singer, dancer, musician, song writer, translator, teacher and recording artist

Kimo Alama Keaulana was 17 when he won the City & County of Honolulu Hawaiian Language Song Writing and Composing Contest in 1973. A couple of years later he tried to register for Hawaiian language classes at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and was told he was too fluent to take them.

His subsequent career as a chanter, singer, musician and recording artist was followed by an equally productive and significant career as an educator at Kapiolani Community College, Honolulu Community College and UH-Manoa.

Keaulana, 63, won the Hoku Awards for Hawaiian Language Performance and Haku Mele (best newly written Hawaiian song) in 2005.

MIKE KELLY

Radio station executive, record producer, record company executive, talent manager, record store manager

Mike Kelly came to Hawaii in 1968 to open Records Hawaii, the first free-standing record store in Hawaii. Several years later he saw a new duo named Olomana — Jerry Santos and Robert Beaumont, and liked what he heard. The threesome started their own label, and Seabird Sound released Olomana’s first album in 1976.

Through his dual roles as Olomana’s manager and booking agent, Kelly came to the attention of KCCN Hawaiian radio, which offered him a job in sales. Kelly rose through the corporate ranks to become general manager — providing a unique platform for Hawaiian music on local radio.

Kelly, 72, won a Hoku for his work as co-producer when Olomana’s album,”Come To Me Gently,” won Album of the Year in 1982.

SAM SEPTIMO

Musician, vocalist, songwriter, recording artist

By the time he was in his mid-teens Lahaina-born Sam Septimo, now 84, was playing professionally in local nightclubs. At 20 he moved to Oahu; like many island musicians he worked a full-time non-musical day job and played music at night.

Septimo became the lead Tahitian drummer for John Pi‘ilani Watkins’ Polynesian Extravaganza, played guitar for several halau hula, became the leader of his own namesake group, Sam Septimo and his Polynesian Exotics, and recorded historic albums with Tony Lindsey and Kawai Cockett.

Two of his best-known compositions are “Ku‘u Leianuenue,” which he wrote for his youngest daughter, and “Lamalani.”

2018 LEGACY AWARD RECIPIENTS

JULITA KANANIMAULOA MALINA ALAPAI (1872-1928)

Vocalist and recording artist

Julita Kananimauloa Malina Alapai was the great Hawaiian diva of the early 20th century. Born on Kauai, raised on Oahu, she was one of the first women to sing with the Royal Hawaiian Band and soon became the most prominent. Alapai debuted with the band Dec. 5, 1898, and continued to sing with them through March 13, 1916.

Alapai was also one of the first Hawaiian recording artists. She recorded 11 songs in 1904 — barely five years after the first commercial recordings of Hawaiian music were made. She made additional recordings in 1911 and was part of the Brunswick recording sessions in 1928.

Alapai had no biological children but was the hanai mother of Cecelia Kuliaikanuuowaialeale Parker-Waipa and therefore the hanai grandmother of Hoku Award-­winners and Lifetime Achievement Award-winners Tommy Lake Jr. and Kahauanu Lake.

MARTIN PAHINUI (1951-2017)

Musician, vocalist and recording artist

The youngest of Gabby Pahinui’s talented sons, John Martin Pahinui joined his father and three older brothers — Bla, Philip and Cyril — in the Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band. He joined the Peter Moon Band in the early 1980s and was the lead vocalist on two of the group’s biggest hits, “Cane Fire!” and “Flying.”

Pahinui‘s career highlights also included a long-awaited “reunion album” recorded with Bla and Cyril in 1992, a self-titled solo album for the Mountain Apple Company in 1995, and recording as a member of Hui Aloha with George Kuo and Dennis and David Kamakahi for George Winston’s Dancing Cat record label in 1999.

His final project was a full-length album of music video performances, “Martin Pahinui: The Golden Voice,” recorded and produced by George Kahumoku in 2015.

Martin Pahinui won seven Na Hoku Hanohano Awards as a member of the Peter Moon Band between 1983 and 1988.