KEOLA BEAMER & HENRY KAPONO

Keola Beamer’s contributions to slack key guitar during the 1970s began to spark public interest in kī-hō‘alu, launching a statewide revival of the tradition, and his 1978 release, Honolulu City Lights, is the largest selling recording in the history of Hawaiian music. Today he is one of Hawai'i's premier singer-songwriters, arrangers, composers, and masters of the Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Henry Kapono became the wildly popular phenomenon Cecilio & Kapono (aka C&K) with Cecilio Rodriguez. They helped forge the sound of 70s Hawaiian music, with laid-back contemporary rock that voiced the feelings of an entire generation in Hawai‘i. Today as a solo artist, Henry is a Grammy-nominated and award-winning singer and songwriter.

Despite their common history – they were both parts of the “Hawaiian Renaissance”, the seminal movement in Hawai‘i’s cultural history that brought language, music, hula, art, and all aspects of Hawaiian culture back to their central place in the life of the Islands -- Keola & Henry only performed together for the first time in 2014. Since then, this wildly popular show of two music greats who shaped Hawaiian music from the ‘70s onward has toured throughout the State and in the continental U.S.

Keola & Henry will each perform a set, and then come together onstage to celebrate their original songs that have become beloved classics of contemporary Hawaiian music.