More Kaleponi News - 2011

October 28, 2011

A Little Video - My Yellow Ginger Lei

I've been obsessing over video lately, I guess, instead of coming up with new songs to share with you. When I want to do a video demo I naturally turn to an old favorite slack key piece. This one was intended to demonstrate an editing procedure, but I was pretty happy with this rendition of My Yellow Ginger Lei. And if you're interested in quick, inexpensive video editing software, check out this tutorial on using REAPER to edit video.

September 20, 2011

A National Heritage Fellowship for Ledward Kaapana

Sometimes it might seem like this site is more about Ledward Kaapana than Fran Guidry, but I have to tell you, I find him a lot more interesting than me. I was thrilled for my friend when we learned that he had won a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship for his role in keeping the old Kalapana style of slack key guitar alive. We were honored to be invited to attend the festivities surround the 2011 awards. Along the way a lot of great music got played and I captured a little of it on video.

Our first jam session came early in the week long festivities, at the orientation meeting. After the meeting Ledward and another honoree, Warner Williams, got together in the elevator foyer for some picking and grinning. The went through a bunch of Warner's wide repertoire, here's My Blue Heaven, a blues in E, and You're Cheatin' Heart.

I didn't capture the final concert, you can see that archived on the National Endowment for the Arts site, though. What I did catch was Ledward's performance to close the awards dinner. The awards were presented at the Capitol and the dinner followed at the Library of Congress. This is a very special place, and seeing and hearing Led peform there was a lifetime memory.

August 5, 2011

A Different Angle on Moani Ke `Ala

I've fooled with attaching video cameras to guitars a couple of times. It results in an odd perspective in which the guitar is fixed and the world moves around it. Recently I realized that with all the small cameras I've acquired I could attach a bunch of cameras to the guitar. So here's Moani Ke `Ala and here's a writeup of the process: http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2011/08/05/guitar-cam-fun/

May 22, 2011

Ledward and Friends at Kona Brewing Co., Hawai`i Kai

I love playing slack key in Hawai`i, everything feels so right, but the special pleasure of visiting the islands is finding the great local musicians who have still managed to find a gig. One guy who has a great thing going is Mr. Ledward Kaapana. He plays at the Kona Brewing Company in Hawai`i Kai every Sunday from 6 PM to 8 PM, usually with some extra on both ends. And almost always with lots of performer friends dropping by to share their talent.

I've tried many times to capture performances from these shows, but the lighting and enthusiastic audience have foiled all my results, until now. Even in these clips the angles are poor, the lighting is marginal, and the sound is not the greatest, but I captured some fun moments with Ledward, his sister Lei, and Emily Obrigo of the Obrigo Ohana.

Here's Ledward's "Under the Double Eagle" medley, that starts with an Austrian March that somehow became a country instrumental classic and takes a tour around the the archives of mainland pop. Following this uptempo romp we have Led's signature vocal piece, I Kona, with a hula by Emily Obrigo. In both clips Ledward is being accompanied by Jesse Gregorio on bass and sister Lei on `ukulele.

April 11, 2011

Ledward at Spam Jam, Waikiki

One of the major cultural events on the O`ahu calendar every year is Spam Jam. Somehow we've always missed it until now, but Ledward invited us along for his performance so we caravaned over the Ko`olau to big city. Spam Jam is a celebration of all things related to the iconic canned meat product that has become part of the Hawaiian cultural landscape. The event includes celebrity chefs showing their Spam creations, Spam logo clothing, and lots of performances by Hawaiian artists.

I headed out for the event without thinking about cameras and recorders, but when we got to Kalakaua Avenue I looked around and got the urge to video. Fortunately I was carrying my iPhone 4 with a full battery and empty memory, so I improvised a support with my sunglasses, propped the phone up on a newspaper rack, and caught a whole bunch of Ledward doing his classics. I created a playlist with all the clips so you can enjoy the whole show at your leisure.