Star-Bulletin file

I’ve got my hands full tonight with video work, but I wanted to take a minute and pay my respects to the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

There’s not much to say, other than I miss him – as do MANY others here and around the world. We “met” via e-mail back in the mid-90’s when I was a homesick college student in Los Angeles with Internet access and he was venturing out onto the World Wide Web from his Pawaa apartment.

I can remember coming home for summer school in 1996 and watching the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards on TV with my mom. That was the year IZ and the Makaha Sons reunited on stage.

On June 26, 1997, he was gone.

YouTube has a bunch of great videos posted online. I’ll share a few of my favorites after the jump.

The best footage of IZ, in my opinion, is when it’s just him, an ukulele and a microphone.

Like this:

Love how it shows his kolohe side at the end. “SHARK!”

After his death, KGMB aired an “Island Music Island Hearts” special that showcased Kamakawiwo’ole. His performance of “Hawaii ‘78″ always gives me chicken skin:

Here’s a tribute video with slick production values and classic photographs:

And the Bu La’ia episode where IZ and his band played “Hawaiian Supaman” live:

It’s been 11 years, but we’re still reminded of IZ on the regular. His music played as a double rainbow appeared at the end of Tim Russert’s memorial service in Washington, D.C. recently.

He was also nominated for a Hoku Award this year.

And he still ranks on the Billboard charts with music that dates back 15 years.

Rest in peace, Hawaiian.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Outside The Club, Music, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.