Legends: Keola Beamer and Henry Kapono

Keola Beamer’s contributions to slack-key guitar (kī-hō‘alu) during the 1970s sparked public interest in the style and launched a revival of the tradition. His 1978 release Honolulu City Lights is the best-selling recording in the history of Hawaiian music. Today, he is one of Hawaii’s premier singer-songwriters and a master of Hawaiian slack-key guitar.

Henry Kapono helped forge the sound of Hawaiian music in the 1970s as half of the duo Cecilio and Kapono, whose laid-back contemporary island rock voiced the feelings of an entire generation of Hawaiians. As a solo artist, Kapono is a Grammy-nominated and award-winning singer-songwriter.

Despite their common history, Beamer and Kapono only performed together for the first time in 2014. Touring together, Beamer and Kapono—with Beamer’s wife, Moanalani, performing hula—celebrate their original songs, which have become beloved contemporary Hawaiian classics, and share the spirit of the islands.