Facing Future, that same engineer handed me the cut they had made and said, “This is Israel’s song and you need to listen to it.” So I did, and then I played it for Israel and he was kind of indifferent about it. He thought it was kind of cool, but I had to sort of talk him into including it on the album. I think he felt like it was old material and he wasn’t, initially, very excited about it. He was also the first to point out that he wasn’t singing the right words or using the right chords in some places. But I told him that didn’t matter because it was his version of the song, and it was really good.
His musical abilities were fantastic. For a big guy, he had relatively small hands, and his ʻukulele strumming was classic; he would just get in a groove and lock in on it. And that night he was just in the right moment and—boom—one take and he had this amazing song.
WC: In the past 20 years, how far has that song spread across the world?
JM: It really took about a year for it to catch on at first. His initial big hit from the album was “Maui, Hawaiian Sup’pa Man,” and then there were a few others too that got radio play before “Over the Rainbow” did. But it’s gone completely around the world in the past two decades. We get cards and letters from Third-World countries that are still discovering him. For a long time people abroad didn’t realize he had passed.
WC: Really?
JM: We’d get letters from people about to come vacation here asking how they could make sure to get a chance to watch Israel perform live. And we’d have to write back telling them that he wasn’t with us anymore.
But it’s been in all kinds of movies and commercials all around the world. People hear that opening strumming and they instantly know it’s Israel. It’s the all-time biggest carrier of Hawaiian music across the globe. It’s also the golden goose for the music publisher in New York, EMI Music [founded in 1931 as Electric and Musical Industries Ltd]. At one time it was the most popular song in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. And we met the lady that takes care of the music for that song in New York, and she told us that Israel’s version of the song was, by far, the most requested piece of music for licensing in movies and commercials that EMI has ever had. She said that in one more generation, no one will remember Judy Garland. Everyone will think that Israel did it first.
WC: “Hawaii ’78” is probably his most popular song today in Hawaiʻi. It’s still capable of bringing on fits of chicken skin as well as tight throats and teary eyes with its powerful lyrics, which include the state motto, and Israel’s commanding delivery. What did people think when they first heard that song?
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, during a late-night session. Israel called an engineer and said, “I’ve got this idea and I need to record it.” And the engineer was tired already—he’d been recording all day—but he said, “Israel, if you can be here in 10 minutes I’ll give you some time and we can do it.” So Israel walked into the studio, did one take of the medley and walked right back out.
WC: And that cut is the version that’s on the album?
JM: Yep, that’s the one. At the last moments during our production of Facing Future, that same engineer handed me the cut they had made and said, “This is Israel’s song and you need to listen to it.” So I did, and then I played it for Israel and he was kind of indifferent about it. He thought it was kind of cool, but I had to sort of talk him into including it on the album. I think he felt like it was old material and he wasn’t, initially, very excited about it. He was also the first to point out that he wasn’t singing the right words or using the right chords in some places. But I told him that didn’t matter because it was his version of the song, and it was really good.
His musical abilities were fantastic. For a big guy, he had relatively small hands, and his ʻukulele strumming was classic; he would just get in a groove and lock in on it. And that night he was just in the right moment and—boom—one take and he had this amazing song.
WC: In the past 20 years, how far has that song spread across the world?
JM: It really took about a year for it to catch on at first. His initial big hit from the album was “Maui, Hawaiian Sup’pa Man,” and then there were a few others too that got radio play before “Over the Rainbow” did. But it’s gone completely around the world in the past two decades. We get cards and letters from Third-World countries that are still discovering him. For a long time people abroad didn’t realize he had passed.
WC: Really?
Perspective:
"She said that in one more generation, no one will remember Judy Garland. Everyone will think that Israel
did it first."