Very Very Fond Memories

I've been thinking a lot about Genoa Keawe since she passed.
She actually didn't know me and I was always too shy (yes, shy) to approach her when I would see her at various functions. But I since the passing of Nona Beamer and learning that she wrote Pupu Hinuhinu, my thoughts have been with Sister Keawe. Strange that my brain made that leap, but there it is.

When I was in the 4th grade (I think it was the 4th), my Dad gave my sister and I a choice of Christmas presents: computer or stereo. A no-brainer. So our new stereo had, first and foremost, speakers. Something unseen in the Rago, single-parent household before that time. It also had a radio, an eight track player, and a record player. Total score for our little family in Las Vegas.

I remember every Saturday and Sunday morning, my Mom would play music on that stereo to wake us up. She had quite a repertoire stashed in her dresser end-table. I knew the lyrics, well, my kind of lyrics, to songs sung by the likes Tony Orlando and Dawn, Neil Diamond, Saturday's Warriors (yes, I'm from that generation), and The Sound of Music.

But there was one singer that made my tired, overworked/underpaid Mom, (the woman who was a receptionist by day and inserted ads in the newspaper by night), very very happy. Actually, playing that record made us all very very happy.

The singer was Genoa Keawe.

We had a vinyl of her and my Mom played it every week that I can recall.

As I listened to Sister Keawe's music tonight, I realized I knew (from childhood) every song that I could find by her. And I LOVE every single one.

Here are two of my favorites. Enjoy.




Also here is a pretty instrumental of the keiki hula, Pupu Hinuhinu by Nona Beamer. I couldn't find the song to download with the sweet words she wrote. If anyone finds it, will you email me? This is the first Hawaiian dance I learned. I think I was 4 or 5.