They almost swallow their more whimsical stringed brethren, texture and quantity coalesce and still allow a bold feeling of faithful Hawaiiana. It is, however, the infusion of the gorgeously multi-colored and positively histrionic orchestra strings that ameliorates the Hawaiian soil. King’s honey-sweet sunburst ballad comprises the same ingredients in different forms, for example the ukulele as a rhythm device next to paradisiac flute figures and Makia’s malleable steel guitar. Surprisingly enough, the following tune The Hawaiian Wedding Song rectifies this observation.Ĭharles E. The problem: the coolness and easygoing interplay at the beginning wanes. The tune then morphs into the well-known formula of carefreeness. Even so, it is Frank Hunter’s orchestra which slowly fills the nothingness with both polyphonous Space-Age droplets and more romantic-saccharine legato washes. His steel guitar licks oscillate resiliently, his Makapu Beach Boys accompany the dreaminess with sun-dappled ukulele licks and alto flute airflows, the peacefulness of the backdrop inherits the tropical heat of each instrument’s decay phase. Sweet Leilani by Harry Owens is as good a point of origin as any in the case of Sam Makia’s ode to Hawaii.
Is it, at the end of the day, simply another pale Hawaiian album, or does it have that certain something, at least partially so? I will take a closer look on Sam Makia's 13 tracks, 16 songs and three medleys below. It is rare to see ukulele-focused structures ennobled with strings, a subsequent example being Santo & Johnny's Hawaii (1961). Sam Makia's steel guitar licks encapsulate the typical Hawaiian elasticity and warped sustain, Hawaii: The Fabulous Fiftieth State is focused and coherent in its overarching form, but also surprisingly varied and keen on introducing new textures. Some songs furthermore add a lush percussion mixture of bongos and kettle drums most of the time though, the ukulele is used as the rhythmic device.
They appear on the majority of the material, while the remaining tunes are perfect Hapa Haole takes played by Sam Makia and his Makapu Beach Boys, comprising of one ukulele player and one flutist. Primarily known for his gorgeous masterpiece White Goddess (1959) which features unique cuts and interpretations of the mystical-tropical kind and rounds the divine physiognomy off with a rarely heard ondioline, Hunter is responsible on Makia's album for the symphonic strings. There is another reason this album is interesting for the Exotica connoisseur who dove deep into the genre's treasures: composer and arranger Frank Hunter is involved and even mentioned on the front cover. Sam Makia and the people at Kapp Records try to present a mixture of well-known and soon-to-be classics as well as curiously ephemeral traditions that are rarely considered on other LP's, among them the quirky Kuu Ipo Ika Hee Pue One, but more about this track and all the others in a moment. In the same year, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States which triggered an endless wave of Hawaiian music, much of it hastily pieced together and recorded in an hour or so in order to profit from the growing market of tourism accessories and the yearning of people for this beautiful group of islands. Naturally, Hawaii: The Fabulous Fiftieth State, released in 1959 on Kapp Records, is created to make a few bucks, but it is also an infotainment kind of album. Hawaiian steel guitarist Sam Makia promises big things on his album Hawaii: The Fabulous Fiftieth State (its stereo incarnation being known as Hawaii In Stereo), considering its liner notes, emphasis mine: "You will hear the music that is actually played in the Hawaiian Islands." You know what? This seems to be true if one takes a closer look at the tracklist, but first and foremost, let me talk about the reason of the album's existence and the people involved during the process of its creation, as both fields of information can potentially cause much joy, all the more so when one is faced with the flood of thousands of rather dull Hawaiian albums.