Just how multiple Grammy winner George Kahumoku has run a successful music career and a farm seems a bit of a mystery, until he describes his daily routine and great ʻohana. Oh, and somewhere in there, he’s managed to earn three Master’s degrees — one in sculpture, another in business administration, and a third in fine arts.
For more than 50 years, Kahumoku has not only contributed to a growing interest and respect for Hawaiian music, especially in the revival of kī hōʻalu, slack key guitar. He’s also helped in institutional building by founding the Institute of Hawaiian Music at the University of Hawaiʻi-Maui College. The Institute helps to train the next wave of songwriters in Hawaiʻi.
This year, Kahumoku is among a handful of musical artist to receive the Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Artists’ 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award.
In this interview, Kahumoku describes a Hawaiian culture that nurtured his life as a musician, his artistic routine, and the “accident” that made winning Grammys possible. Maui Now writer Gary Kubota interviews him.
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