Under the Radar: Ben Kaili is His Own Man
By Shirley Stoffer
He appears at most of the major Hawaiian music events on the island of Hawai‘i and neighboring islands, playing slack key guitar and singing in his sweet, nahenahe style. He shares traditional Hawaiian music at music festivals on the mainland and in the state of Hawai‘i, and plays at Hawaiian-style restaurants and other live-performance venues in California and Las Vegas. He’s played on two CDs that were nominated for Hawai‘i’s prestigious Nā Hōkū Hanohano award. All the top Hawaiian musicians seem to know him, do you?
Meet Ben Kaili, from Keaukaha in Hilo.
Ben is the oldest of three children. He was raised from birth by his grandparents on his mother’s side, Joseph and Hannah Kahe‘e. His father, Benjamin Kaili, was in the military on O‘ahu, where his siblings and mother lived. His grandparents did catering for events in Hilo. Ben says, “My grandparents knew everybody—from Auntie Dottie (Thompson), who co-founded the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival, to the mayor and Governor Burns—because they catered their functions.”
He was exposed to fine Hawaiian music from an early age. “I met great entertainers like Melveen Leed, Aunty Genoa Keawe, Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole, the Kalima ‘ohana and many more during those years.”
Ben started going to ‘ukulele classes at age six, and took uke lessons from Nicky Kauhi and schoolteacher Uncle Albert Nahāleā. Ben’s grandmother gave him his first guitar—a twelve-string.
When he was eight or nine, Ben began to teach himself to play slack key guitar. “At my grandparents’ caterings, they always had music,” he says. “I used to watch Uncle Fred Punahou and other local greats play, and I grasped a lot of knowledge from them. Then I would go home and try to get the tuning as close as possible to what they played. I would position my fingers and hands like I saw them do on stage. Then I would try playing. I would go to sleep, literally, with my guitar. My grandfather bought me a Sony tape recorder, and it would always be on ‘Record/Pause’ when I went to sleep. I would wake up in the early, early morning, hit the button, and play for a half hour or so, hit the button again and go back to sleep. I didn’t know what I was playing. I’d listen to what I played the next morning. I was working out songs by Gabby, Hui ‘Ohana, and Sunday Manoa.”
Ben says that he is the only guitarist he knows of who can keep his guitar in slack key tuning while accompanying a song in any key and playing complete chords (guitarists will understand what an accomplishment that is). Even though he plays ‘ukulele and bass too, slack key guitar is his main instrument.
Ben likes staying “under the radar” and being “his own man” without the restrictions imposed on musicians by huge event coordinators and record companies. “I like working with local musicians and studios,” he says. “I do a lot with the community here.”
He is the Hawaiian Festivals Coordinator for East Hawai‘i Cultural Center in Hilo, which produces the annual Big Island Hawaiian Music Festival held each July. The two-day festival features premiere Hawaiian musicians—some “legends,” and some up-and-coming. Some of the internationally known participants in the 23rd annual event in 2012 were Cyril Pahinui, Dennis Kamakahi, Benny Chong, Sonny Lim, and Aunty Diana Aki. There is music, hula, food and culture at the event, all for a very modest entry fee. As of 2010, the festival began advertising in Japan, emphasizing it presents “authentic” Hawaiian music, versus the Japanese-style Hawaiian music that is often in heard in Japan. There were Japanese scheduled to come to the event from Sendai, Japan before the tsunami hit; of course, they had to cancel their trip. Happily, in 2012, a group of ‘ukulele players from Japan, along with their wahine hula dancers, were able to participate in the festival.
Dennis Taniguchi, executive director of the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center, created the very popular annual Japantown Nihonmachi Street Fair in San Francisco 40 years ago. He arranged for Ben to play at the Ho‘olaule‘a Stage at that festival in 2009 and it has become a regular gig on Benʻs calendar. “Japanese people love Hawaiian music so much,” he says. “They enjoy seeing ‘the real thing’!”
Uncle George Na‘ope, famous for co-founding the internationally-known Merrie Monarch Hula Festival, was a relative of Ben’s on the Kaili side of the family: he was Ben’s grandmother’s nephew. Hula holds a special place in Ben’s heart, too. He has been playing music for Kumu Meleana Manuel’s Ke ‘Olu Makani o Mauna Loa, a hālau based in Volcano, for about five years. Kumu Meleana was a student of Uncle George’s. Ben accompanied her hālau in the revived Merrie Monarch Keiki Hula Competition which was held again in Hilo this past October for the first time in ten years. He is looking forward to accompanying the hālau to the Nihonmachi Festival in San Francisco in 2013. He will also be playing with them at The George Na‘ope Keiki Hula Competition in Sacramento that is held each July as part of the Sacramento Aloha Festival. “It’s a great event,” he says.
Ben plays in the band, “Kanakapila,” with Victor Chock on ‘ukulele, JJ Ahuna on bass, and Dwight Tokumoto on steel guitar. They have been together since 2005, when Victor called them all to play with him at a baby lū‘au. The group’s Tuesday night jam sessions at Hilo Town Tavern have a large following of both locals and visitors.
“The band is well-known in Portland, Australia, London, and Canada, among other places,” Ben tells me, “because of the ‘snowbirds’ who return to Hilo every year. They come to see us at the tavern and pass the word along to their friends.”
Ben has recorded five albums: two with Kanakapila, two solo, and one slack key guitar album with bass player Eddie Atkins. He played on a Christmas music compilation “Slack Key Christmas” put out by Palm Records that was nominated for a Nā Hōkū in 2008. “Kaowahi,” the slack key album he released in 2009, was nominated for a Nā Hōkū Hanohano award that year. Ben’s slack key music is also heard in the background of the popular “Volcanoscapes” video, which features footage of erupting Kīlauea caldera.
2013 will be an especially exciting year for Ben. It begins with his first visit to Japan in March with the Ke ‘Olu Makani o Mauna Loa hālau. Later in the year, he will be releasing a new slack key guitar CD. “It will have a lot of originals on it that will be in the Hawaiian traditional style,” he says. He is recording it at Charles Brotman’s Lava Tracks Recording Studio. Charles, the well-known musician and producer of Grammy and Nā Hōkū Hanohano award-winning albums, is based in Waimea on Hawai‘i Island.
Ben and the band also appear annually in Hilo at the Big Island Hawaiian Music Festival and the KWXX Ho‘olaule‘a, the Hawaiian Slack key Guitar Festival at the Sheraton Kona, Kailua Kona’s Kupuna Hula Festival, Moku O Keawe Hula Festival at Waikoloa Beach Resort, and the Gabby Pahinui Waimānalo Kanikapila on O‘ahu. (Ben has a close relationship with Gabby’s son and slack key master, Cyril Pahinui, affectionately calling him “Uncle C.”) You will also see them backing up well-known local musicians like Darlene Ahuna and Aunty Diana Aki on Hawai‘i Island.
On the mainland, watch for Ben in California at the San Francisco Japantown Nihonmachi Festival, Bocci’s Cellar and Pono’s Hawaiian Grill in Santa Cruz, American Burger in Monterey, and Da Kine Cafe in Sunnyvale. You may even get a chance to catch him at the Pure Aloha Festival in Las Vegas.
Ben Kaili gets around! Now that you’ve been introduced, please say “Aloha!” when you see him. ❖
Contact Ben Kaili: b_kaili@yahoo.com, facebook.com/ben.kaili1
Contact photographer Lance Miller: JLPhotographyDesign.com
Contact writer Shirley Stoffer: shirley AT konaweb DOT com
