Ledward Kaapana

Ledward Kaapana is a Hawaiian musician, best known for playing in the slack key guitar style. He also plays steel guitar, ukulele, autoharp and bass guitar, and is a renowned falsetto singer.

Early life

Led grew up in a musical family living in a small black sand bay village of Kalapana where he states there were little distractions. "We didn't have electricity, not television, not even much radio, so we entertained ourselves. You could go to any house and everybody was playing music." At fourteen, he began performing professionally with his mother, Tina, and his uncle, the rarely-recorded slack-key master Fred Punahoa.

Professional career

His professional breakthrough came a few years later, when he was a part of Hui 'Ohana, with his twin brother, Nedward Kaapana, and his cousin Dennis Pavao. Hui 'Ohana released fourteen albums, each of which was a commercial success. Kaapana left the group eventually, then released six albums as the leader of another trio, I Kona, and performed with the Pahinui Brothers, Aunty Genoa Keawe, David Chun, Barney Isaacs and Uncle Joe Keawe.

His first solo album, Simply Slack Key, was released in 1988 on Paradise Records; the album won the Na Hoku Hanohano Award for "Instrumental Album of the Year" in 1989. He released Led Live in 1994 on Dancing Cat Records. He has performed and recorded with acoustic lap-steel player Bob Brozman, and released several more albums on the Dancing Cat label from the late 1990s onward.

It should be noted that Kaapana spells his name without using the modern 'okina marking that is used to indicate the proper pronunciation of certain Hawaiian words. Kaapana has said that his family has always spelled it without an 'okina and that he prefers the traditional spelling^{[citation needed]} Most of his marketing literature is without the okina.

Many of his fans refer to themselves as "Led Heads."

In Winter, 2008 he toured North America with Mike Kaawa.

Quotes

"Everything you play, every time you play, there's a mood, an energy. If you plug into it, the music just flows. Even in a simple song, there are so many different ways to play the melody, the rhythm, the harmony. It never stops if you stay open to it."^[1]

Awards

He is one of the very few Hawaiian recording artists who has received Na Hoku Hanohano Awards from the Hawai'i Academy of Recording Arts (HARA) for work as a member of three different recording entities—as a solo artist, as a member of Ledward Kaapana & I Kona, and as a member of Hui 'Ohana. Two of his solo albums, '"Ki Ho'alu: Hawaiian Slack Key" and "Grandmaster Slack Key Guitar" received Grammy Award nominations and appeared on the final ballot in the "Best Hawaiian Music Album" category.^[2]

References

1. ^ Slack Key Guitar Book
2. ^ Maui News: Grammy nominations excite local artists

External links

• Ledward's Website
• Kihoalu.org Artist Profile
• 'Ukulele lessons going over Uncle Led's techniques