Stellar music featuring three winners of the Na Hoku Hanohano Male Vocalist of the Year award and a prime rib buffet make for “An Evening of Aloha at the Grand Naniloa Hotel.” ADVERTISING Stellar music featuring three winners of the
Stellar music featuring three winners of the Na Hoku Hanohano Male Vocalist of the Year award and a prime rib buffet make for “An Evening of Aloha at the Grand Naniloa Hotel.”
Willie K, Mark Yamanaka and state Sen. Brickwood Galuteria — who is the event’s emcee as well as one of the entertainers — headline the fundraiser for Hilo’s Pacific Tsunami Museum at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, at the Willie K Crown Room.
“We are absolutely thrilled with the caliber of artists coming to support the museum. There are over 30 Na Hoku Hanohano awards between the three of them. When I tell people about the event, the reaction is usually disbelief that we have all of them on one card,” said Marlene Murray, executive director of the Pacific Tsunami Museum. “The event will also include a live auction, including a two-night stay in an oceanfront suite at the beautiful Kahala Hotel &Resort.
“The money raised will help the museum to continue its mission of saving lives through the promotion of tsunami education and awareness. There is no tsunami season; a tsunami can occur at any time and that’s why we always need to be prepared.”
With mind-boggling virtuosity and repertoire including blues, rock, jazz, Hawaiian, katchi-katchi and even opera, Uncle Willie K has built an international reputation with luminaries including Mick Fleetwood, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons sharing not just billing, but the stage, with him.
Galuteria, the 1985 Na Hoku Hanohano Male Vocalist of the Year who’s better known these days as a politician and radio personality, used his powers of persuasion to bring Maui’s musical titan to the Grand Naniloa for what Murray is calling “the event of the year in Hilo.”
“Willie’s a really, really good friend of mine,” Galuteria told the Tribune-Herald. “And when I called him up to see if he could join us, I told him, ‘It’s in your own room, brah. And I know you’ve got to be there every now and then, since it’s your room.’
“And Willie does so much stuff. He can do the blues one minute and opera the next minute. And he goes between multiple musical styles seamlessly.”
Willie K took the coveted Male Vocalist of the Year award home twice, in 1992 and 2010.
Yamanaka, who took home the Male Vocalist of the Year Hoku in 2011, and again — in a tie with Kamaka Kukona — in 2014, noted the museum’s importance to Hilo.
“The museum is really important and a reminder of how tsunamis have affected our community in the past. It’s something I choose to support,” Yamanaka said.
Yamanaka is best known for his sweet, soaring falsetto vocals, something he’s honed as a musician for kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho’s Halau O Ka Ua Kani Lehua. A few months ago, he announced on Facebook he’d been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a disorder that causes weakness or paralysis to one side of the face.
“I got a little sidetracked, but I’m on top of it now,” he said. “There’s still a little bit of discomfort when I’m singing, but it’s healed 90 or 95 percent now. … I can sing close to my potential. I’m OK where it’s at now.”
Yamanaka had other good news to share, as well. He and longtime girlfriend Leilani Pereira are engaged to be married.
“I’m excited about that,” he said.
Galuteria said he’s excited to be on the bill, as well, and will bring Danny Caporoso, whom he called “a monster jazz guitarist” and bassist Mike Seda, who has “this voice that doesn’t end.”
“After going into politics, music is more an avocation instead of a vocation, the way it was before. But whenever I get a chance to play, I play,” he said. “I think, musically, the night’s going to be gold-standard material. And from a mission perspective, we don’t want to get morose because of what’s happened (with tsunamis), but we really want to educate people. Because this is a living memorial. And I love Hilo, too. But this is a really good cause.
“I’m hoping that the Hilo community embraces this event.”
Limited reserved seating is available for the benefit show. A premium table for eight is $1,500 and includes two bottles of wine. VIP booth seating for four is $600 and an upper-level table for four is $500. Both include a bottle of wine. Individual tickets are $75.
For tickets or more information, call the museum at 935-0926.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
