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the pahu, standing around it, just trying different things, I told him to turn around and face Diamond Head and took about six different shots of him from behind at different angles.
Once we got the film developed, we started looking at what we had.
And we had some beautiful photos of him. His skin was this beautiful shade of brown because he spent multiple hours each day in the pool getting as much exercise as he could. An absolutely gorgeous tan, and these 87 photos captured that wonderfully. And when we got to the shots of him facing Diamond Head we paused. I said, “You know, it looks like you’re facing something—perhaps it’s your future. Maybe that’s the name of the album: Facing Future.” And he went, “Wow, that’s cool.”
WC: The album is both happy and sad. You’ve got playful songs like “Hene Hene Kou Aka.” You’ve got interesting cultural fusions like “Maui, Hawaiian Sup’pa Man.” You’ve got songs of longing like “Kaulana Kawaihae,” and even completely tragic songs like “La Elima.” Where did that diversity of emotion within the album come from, and does it represent, to any extent, Hawaiian culture coming out of the renaissance?
JM: It certainly does. It certainly represents the Hawaiian culture in his life. The song collection was really based on a narrative of his life. Some of the bumps and depressions along the road, but also some of the things he loved and had fun with. He had a great sense of humor. Del Beazley, the writer of “Maui, Hawaiian Sup’pa Man”—if those two got together you’d best stand back because the jokes would be flying back-and-forth. But yeah, there are really playful, fun songs on the album and there are really deep, heavy songs as well, often representing specific moments in his life.
It really represents the scope of his love for his fellow Hawaiians. He was truly someone that loved his brothers and sisters. And to him—he didn’t see racial or ethnic lines as important—so to him Hawaiian could mean more than an ethnicity. I think he thought that if you were amalgamated or assimilated into Hawaiian culture and you shared a respect for the land and the values of Hawaiʻi, you were Hawaiian, regardless of your ethnic makeup.
We all have our own playlists, right? We remember where we were in our lives the first time we heard a really meaningful song. These three-minute vignettes we call songs are the soundtrack to our lives. Facing Future was Israel’s: happy, sad, intense, light-hearted.
WC: His medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World” became a huge success and contributed a lot to the album’s wide reach. Ironic considering it was a last-minute decision to include it at all, correct?
JM: That song was number 13 out of 14 on the album. It was also recorded several years before I even began working with Israel,