Sunday, July 16, 2017

Mahi Beamer

Singer, pianist, and organist -- via the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. An acclaimed performer in leo ki'eki'e ("high voice"), or falsetto singing. Falsetto singing stems from early Hawaiian culture, when women were not permitted to sing in public. Men took up the countertenoring; now it is a vocal style used by both sexes in Hawaiian music. The"high lonesome" sound of country owes something to this, and of course country music appropriated the Hawaiian lap steel guitar early on as well.