About the Series

HAWAIIAN MUSIC HERITAGE SERIES

Mahalo and sincere aloha to all who, over many years, have written news articles, blogs, archives or liner notes celebrating the rich legacy of Hawaii’s best and most memorable music masters.  Each has assisted enormously to this compliation.  We are especially grateful to Mele.com, Huapala, the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Honolulu Advertiser, Capitol Records, 49th State Records, the Bishop Museum, DeSoto Brown, Wikipedia, Summitt Media and the Library of Congress.  Mahalo nui!

 

The richness of Hawaiian music is manifest in its many textures and styles: ancient chant, slack-key and steel guitar (indigenous to Hawaii), hapa haole sogs, himeni and falsetto traditions, and today’s jazz, rock, western and reggae-influenced contemporary Hawaiian music.  Each is distinctive, each rekindles interest in Hawaiian culture and sparks an entire young generation eager to learn the arts, crafts, and dance of all Hawaiian musical eras.

 

 

Jacqueline “Skylark” Rossetti, aware that far too little attention had been paid to the documentation of a truly unique American music form, set out to reverse that trend by recording the living legends of Hawaiian music. These programs aired monthly on Hawaiian radio station KCCN in in the early 1980s.

 

Titled "The Heritage Series," these programs are oral histories, capturing the words and music of the masters themselves in interviews. These musicians, composers and Hawaiian music masters recalled their personal histories in music, their influences, styles and contributions. Often times when actual recordings of their work were unavailable, these musicians would sing live, playing on ukulele or guitar, the very compositions that greatly effected the development of Hawaiian music.

 

 

The Heritage Series, comprising approximately 125 hours and 72 reels of tape, was recorded by Skylark from 1982 to 1987 and aired on KCCN Hawaiian Radio.  The collection was donated by KCCN to the Library of Congress in September 1983.

 

With approval from Summitt Media, which bought KCCN, we are again making these historic recordings available. To ensure preservation of the original interview recordings which face degeneration of tape over time, they must be professionally digitalized. Thus we have requested digitalization by the Library of Congress and a copy be released to us, the copyright holders, for this purpose.

 

We understand that the scope of such a project will require somewhere in the range of 45+ hours of work at a cost of about $126 per hour for the engineers’ time.

 

The Library of Congress, Motion Picture,  Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division has given us a quote of $3,669.50 for the first series 1982 – 1983 as the cost to master these recording so that we might make then available to the public on this web site, while preserving them as oral histories for generations to come. We will be adding more to the collection as funding becomes available. Warmest  Aloha,   The HawaiianMusicHeritageSeries.com.

 

 

Contact Information

© 2021 Hawaiian Music Heritage Series

Mahalo and sincere aloha to all who, over many years, have written news articles, blogs, archives or liner notes celebrating the rich legacy of Hawaii’s best and most memorable music masters.  Each has assisted enormously to this compliation.  We are especially grateful to Mele.com, Huapala, the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Honolulu Advertiser, Capitol Records, 49th State Records, the Bishop Museum, DeSoto Brown, Wikipedia, Summitt Media and the Library of Congress.  Mahalo nui!

 

The richness of Hawaiian music is manifest in its many textures and styles: ancient chant, slack-key and steel guitar (indigenous to Hawaii), hapa haole sogs, himeni and falsetto traditions, and today’s jazz, rock, western and reggae-influenced contemporary Hawaiian music.  Each is distinctive, each rekindles interest in Hawaiian culture and sparks an entire young generation eager to learn the arts, crafts, and dance of all Hawaiian musical eras.

 

 

Jacqueline “Skylark” Rossetti, aware that far too little attention had been paid to the documentation of a truly unique American music form, set out to reverse that trend by recording the living legends of Hawaiian music. These programs aired monthly on Hawaiian radio station KCCN in in the early 1980s.

 

Titled "The Heritage Series," these programs are oral histories, capturing the words and music of the masters themselves in interviews. These musicians, composers and Hawaiian music masters recalled their personal histories in music, their influences, styles and contributions. Often times when actual recordings of their work were unavailable, these musicians would sing live, playing on ukulele or guitar, the very compositions that greatly effected the development of Hawaiian music.

 

 

The Heritage Series, comprising approximately 125 hours and 72 reels of tape, was recorded by Skylark from 1982 to 1987 and aired on KCCN Hawaiian Radio.  The collection was donated by KCCN to the Library of Congress in September 1983.

 

With approval from Summitt Media, which bought KCCN, we are again making these historic recordings available. To ensure preservation of the original interview recordings which face degeneration of tape over time, they must be professionally digitalized. Thus we have requested digitalization by the Library of Congress and a copy be released to us, the copyright holders, for this purpose.

 

We understand that the scope of such a project will require somewhere in the range of 45+ hours of work at a cost of about $126 per hour for the engineers’ time.

 

The Library of Congress, Motion Picture,  Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division has given us a quote of $3,669.50 for the first series 1982 – 1983 as the cost to master these recording so that we might make then available to the public on this web site, while preserving them as oral histories for generations to come. We will be adding more to the collection as funding becomes available. Warmest  Aloha,   The HawaiianMusicHeritageSeries.com.