More than 10 years after Dennis Kamakahi's death, a new album featuring seven of his original compositions will be released on Friday, Oct. 24. “Slack Key Heaven” features music from Kamakahi’s personal recordings and notes.
“Slack Key Heaven” consists of seven songs: “Koʻolau ‘Ui,” “Waipiʻi,” “He Mele No Pepe (Song For Baby),” “Twin Peaks Slack Key,” “Maui Mountain Home,” “Mission Street Slack Key,” and “Misty Rain.” Kamakahi, a prolific songwriter and slack-key guitarist, died in 2014, according to The New York Times. He composed about 500 songs and was also an ordained Episcopal minister, as reported by the NYT. In the 1970s, he joined Eddie Kamae’s Sons of Hawaiʻi.
On Spotify, Kamakahi’s music gets more than 63,000 monthly listeners. Some of his most popular songs on the platform include “Wahine ‘Ilikea,” which has more than 5 million streams, “Ūlili E” which features his son, David, and has more than 4.6 million streams, and “Always,” which has more than 1 million streams.
In 2009, the Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award-winning musician was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame, as previously reported by PBS Hawai’i. His music has been featured in multiple movies, including “Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch” (2005), “Everything, Everything,” (2017) and “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (2013), according to IMDb.
Presave the music.
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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
