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Israel the Man: 'I am Hawaiian'By Mike Gordon, Beverly Creamer and Wayne Harada He made his simple statement at the close of every concert. "My name is Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, and I am Hawaiian." Those words inspired Native Hawaiians and those who considered themselves Hawaiian at heart. They conveyed a sense of place, of family values, of community — and a sense of cultural pride that became suffused in his music as well. The youngest of three children, Kamakawiwo'ole grew up in the working-class communities of Palolo and Makaha. As a young boy, he spent summers on the most Hawaiian of Islands: Ni'ihau. Ask him and he'd tell you straight out that he was a punk in elementary school. Kids who called him fat found themselves in a beef. He once dangled a classmate by an ankle over a second-floor railing. He was larger and stronger, but still possessed of small hands and fingers that grew more nimble when they first found an 'ukulele. Kamakawiwo'ole never took lessons, not in the traditional sense, and instead learned to play by watching others who could. Anyone who could play became a mentor, starting with his older brother Skippy and his favorite uncle, Hawaiian entertainer Moe Keale. "He'd take Skippy's 'ukulele and go in the room and practice," says musician Louis "Moon" Kauakahi, who performed professionally with Kamakawiwo'ole for 18 years. "From then on, whatever he knew would increase by watching his Uncle Moe, Skippy and his mom. It was the old style. You watch." He could hear something, maybe even just once, maybe even on TV, and play it right away. Or play something close enough to what he wanted, working out the details with on-the-strings improvisation. "He could take anything and once he put his voice and his 'ukulele stylings to it, it would be his music and his style," Kauakahi says. Takes the stage He was probably 9 or 10 when he first stepped onto a stage, called up with his brother by groups playing at the popular Waikiki nightclub where his parents worked. Mom was a manager and dad was a bouncer at Steamboat Lounge on Kalakaua Avenue. The two brothers wound up performing on sunset catamaran cruises off Waikiki, and in 1975, a few years after the family had moved to Makaha, they joined Kauakahi to create one of the most popular Hawaiian groups of the era, the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau. They were country kids, green and rough, but a treasure from the Leeward coast. Their music was pure and raw, part of a new style sweeping the Islands in the 1970s. They had a sound that was lively, urgent and very Hawaiian. Proud of their culture, the group shared the heartbeat of an emerging Hawaiian renaissance with adoring fans, playing lü"au and benefits every weekend. Sometimes they would squeeze as many as five appearances into a day. In the beginning, they were as casual as a group could be: Notoriously late, sometimes grumpy and often dressed in slippers and trucker's caps. But always, Kamakawiwo'ole's voice was the shining centerpiece. "Israel was like the coloring book, and we were like the color crayons," says band member Jerome Koko. "Whatever picture he was drawing, we would just color in. No matter what song it was, it was automatic. Color in, color in." A message for Hawaiians The stage was also Kamakawiwo'ole's pulpit. Friends say he had a fast mouth and a wit he developed by closely watching Uncle Moe. The way he gently jabbed a crowd became an onstage trademark. He was a God-fearing man who loved children and happy endings and wasn't afraid to speak his mind, especially to Hawaiians. He wanted them to live a just and true life free of drugs, gangs and family abuse. Even as he told them to stand together and be proud, he told them they were to blame for their own poverty. His honesty did more than move them. Musician-turned-scholar Jon Osorio says the vocalist changed the way Hawaiians view themselves. Osorio, now director of the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i, says Kamakawiwo'ole told Hawaiians they were connected: They were related by the land and the sea and their skin. And yet, he somehow became kin to us all. "He had that kind of understanding, that we were ultimately part of the whole family," Osorio says. "And he was responsible in a large part for helping us understand that." His message found an eager community, especially among his younger Hawaiian fans. They needed him and in the singer, found an emotional bedrock as mighty as Kamakawiwo'ole's massive frame. "There was a time when the young people were searching for what they should grab a hold of, what should their values be," says Phil Arnone, a Hawai'i director and producer of television documentaries, including one on Kamakawiwo'ole. "That was a time when they were looking for a place and a person to follow." A longing for freedom, a life in pain Despite his personal demons, Kamakawiwo'ole's effect on people was undeniable. The generation of Hawaiian entertainers who performed with him at backyard parties and professional gigs — the friends who knew him best — have trouble remembering him without reliving his loss. They all knew the problems he faced. The drugs. The obesity. The simple inability to say no to temptation. They knew as well about his uncanny ability to make them feel better with a song. He was the healer who seemed able to help everyone but himself. When he embarked on a solo career with The Mountain Apple Co. in 1993, his weight was out of control, well above 500 pounds. He could not walk more than 50 feet and carried his own chair to rest on. He rarely left home. Sometimes the breath of his songs came on the exhale from an oxygen tube in his nose. "He was a large man, trapped in the body of a giant," says long-time friend Jacqueline "Skylark" Rossetti. "It was so hard for him to travel anywhere. How's he going to get there? In those earlier days, I could relate to size with him. We both had weight problems; we felt free in the ocean, and our place of freedom was Makua. And we wore shorts or T-shirts. We could be free. He could swim — this boy could really swim — and for years, he lived on the beach, in the water, picking limu, fishing and playing music on the beach." His appetite was as large as his body — a shocking thing to witness, says Rossetti. The Kamakawiwo'ole family would use an industrial-size, 20-cup rice pot. "And they had to cook two pots," she says. "They ate a lot of rice, not poi, perhaps four cups per person." A childhood dog bite on his leg led to an infection that plagued Kamakawiwo'ole for 17 years into adulthood. "There were times when I'd tell him to give his feet a rest," Rossetti says. "His calf would be wrapped with a towel, to catch drainage from the infection. But the minute he picked up to play the 'ukulele, he would forget the pain." Rossetti was often at Kamakawiwo'ole's bedside at The Queen's Medical Center, where he spent the last days of his life in the summer of 1997. "The day he died," she says, "he was screaming in Hawaiian, ‘E mau loa aku (I will live forever).' He knew, he knew he would be remembered." |
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