Tribune-Herald staff
Tribune-Herald staff
Slack key guitar legend Makana is returning to the Palace Theater next month.
The concert will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 5. Tickets, which are $20 in advance or $25 at the door, are on sale at the Palace Theater box office. The box office is open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. Call 934-7010 during box office hours to purchase tickets by phone with a credit card.
Voted by “Guitar Player Magazine” in 2008 as one of the top three guitarists in the U.S., Makana was the last protégé of Sonny Chillingworth, the legendary master of slack key guitar. Makana’s songs are featured in multiple Grammy-nominated records and feature films, including George Clooney’s recent film “The Descendants.”
“Slack key guitar music, indigenous to Hawaii, has been around longer than the blues, and Makana is considered the greatest living player,” Esquire Magazine declared.
Makana was born and raised on Oahu. He began singing at the age of 7, and at 9 he took up the ‘ukulele. At 11 he began his journey into slack key guitar, learning with Bobby Moderow, protégé of master Raymond Kane, and then received a grant from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts to study under Chillingworth. By the age of 14, he had already turned professional, performing four nights a week in various establishments throughout Honolulu.
His debut album, “Makana, I” was released in 1999. It won the Best World Music Album Award at the Hawaii Music Awards. It was followed by “Koi Au” in 2002 (“A landmark musical statement” – Honolulu Star-Bulletin) and “Ki Ho’alu: Journey of Hawaiian Slack Key” in 2003. Soon thereafter, Makana contributed to the Grammy-nominated albums “Hawaiian Slack Key Kings I & II.”
In 2008, his first all-original release, “Different Game,” came out, and in 2009 he released a 20th anniversary slack key guitar instrumental compilation, “Venus and the Sky Turns to Clay.”
Makana’s music transcends category and trend by integrating elements of folk, rock, ethnic, classical, bluegrass, jazz, traditional, ambient, electronic and Hawaiian slack key in gentle to commanding arrangements.
Makana sings in multiple languages, and his voice is instantly recognizable. In addition to the skack key masters, his influences include Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Cat Stevens, Sting, Bob Dylan, Elton John and others. With this foundation, he has branched out to create his own approach to guitar, called “slack rock.”
Makana has toured with or opened for acts such as Jason Mraz, Santana Elvis Costello, Paul Rodgers, Sting, No Doubt, Jack Johnson, Chris Isaak. John Legend and others.
In early November 2011, Makana wrote, recorded and shot a video for an occupy/protest song in the style of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, called “We Are the Many.” The song explores the emotion of the current Occupy movement, along with all similar movements of the past.
Makana performed for the Obamas at the White House in 2009, and they invited him to perform at the APEC summit in Honolulu on Nov. 12, 2011. Makana accepted the invitation, and decided to perform “We Are the Many” at the APEC dinner, where the Obamas and 20 world leaders were present.
Following the performance, many of the major news outlets picked up the story, which resulted in over 500,000 views of the different videos of his performance and music video. “Rolling Stone” magazine (December 2011) called his song “the Occupy anthem.”