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Livingston Taylor – Composer/performer makes Maui debut at MACC’s McCoy 

Livingston Taylor’s charming vocal style resonates with the audience in the McCoy Studio Theater at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $45 and $65 (plus applicable fees). For more information or tickets, go to the box office, call 242-7469 or visit online www.maui arts.org. • Mim Adkins Photography

Known for hits like “I Will Be In Love With You,” “I’ll Come Running,” “First Time Love” and “Life is Good,” Livingston Taylor may not be as famous as his legendary brother James Taylor, but he is equally as talented as a composer and performer.

With a charming vocal style almost indistinguishable from his brother’s, over the years Taylor has continued to release exceptional albums up to his most recent “Safe Home.” Amongst some lovely original compositions on the CD, he included a novel interpretation of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane.”

“It was an opportunity to record that wonderful melody,” says Taylor. “It’s done basically as an instrumental. It’s a spectacular melody played by Shelly Berg so beautifully on piano.”

A skillful interpreter, on earlier albums he delivered marvelous covers of Michael Jackson’s “The Girl is Mine,” Stevie Wonders “Isn’t She Lovely” and Bill Wither’s “Grandma’s Hands.”

“When I do a song, I need to like it enough that I’m willing to play it over and over until I develop it into a proper place,” he says. “The most important thing is that it interests me enough that I can work on it.”

Fado singer Ramana Vieira has two shows lined up this weekend.

Recording Wither’s “Grandma’s Hands” a cappella and crafting songs like his own composition “Step by Step,” sung with the New Day Jubilee Choir, reflects Taylor’s deep love for gospel music.

“I listened to a lot of gospel music because it was in the water in North Carolina,” he says. “I play and write a lot of gospel music. I see myself as a spiritual person — but certainly not a religious person — but I love gospel music. I love people’s enthusiasm for their spirituality.”

As far as his own compositions, he says, “The muse is mercurial. When she shows up and gives me a back rub, it’s heaven. I become irritated when she’s not around; but when she shows up, all is forgotten and I am enamored once again. I don’t write as much as when I was first started my career in my 20s. I had more to say, and my life was more immediate. The passions were more intense. As I get older, my songs become more refined, and what they lose in immediacy and passion they are compensated for in meticulous craftsmanship.”

Picking up his first guitar at the age of 13, he began a 50-year long career that has encompassed performance and teaching. Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Taylor is the fourth child in an accomplished musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate and Hugh.

“There was a lot of music around,” he recalls. “There’s the fantasy that we all got together and sang with five-part harmony, but that didn’t happen. Certainly we exchanged and spoke in musical terms a lot and spoke about music a lot as we were growing up.”

Did they inspire each other?

“There’s no question that our competition and our love for one another certainly drove each of us to higher levels,” he says.

Right after brother James released his debut album on the Beatle’s Apple Records, Taylor was signed by Capricorn Records, home to the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker and other Southern rock bands.

“James did very well on Apple, then his ‘Sweet Baby James’ record exploded as I was recording mine,” he explains. “The success of his record helped mine and it did fine.”

Taylor’s self-titled debut album, included the song “Carolina Day,” which referenced sister Kate and James. His follow up, “Liv,” was proclaimed by AllMusic as “brilliant and exciting … ‘Liv’s’ original songs are uplifting and give brother James Taylor a good run for his money.”

In later years, some of his most memorable songs include the marvelously evocative “Kitty Hawk” from his “Last Alaska Moon” album.

“What a time for human kind,” he sings. “What an era to be in / Electric light to push back night / Einstein in Berlin / Edison and movies / Ford’s rolling wheels / Rockefeller’s energy / Morgan’s ruthless deals.”

“I love the Wright brothers,” he enthuses. “I’m a pilot, and I was able to write about these truly remarkable inventors. They had to be methodical enough to build a machine, and then teach themselves to fly — and they survived the experience. Many of their contemporaries died in airplane wrecks. It’s inconceivable that they survived.”

Making his Maui debut on Friday, Taylor says he loves performing songs so that “people can leave their existing experience and enter a safe haven where I can speak to who and what they are. I love my audience.”

Does he find people are sometimes surprised how much he sounds like his brother?

“There are great worse things than being compared vocally to James Taylor. James is a wonderful singer — we’re brothers and we come from the same gene pool, so it would be expected that I sound like him. If you like James Taylor, you’ll probably like me.”

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Great news that the Hawaii International Film Festival is returning to Maui after a long absence. Films will begin screening at the MACC on Nov. 30. They will include the Japanese movie “50 First Kisses,” based on the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy “50 First Dates.” Documentaries include the world premiere of the voyaging canoe film “Moananuiakea: One Ocean. One People. One Canoe,” the U.S. premiere of Canada’s “Sharkwater Extinction” and “Anote’s Arc,” about climate change impacting the Pacific nation of Kiribati. Tickets are $12 for each screening, available soon.

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Ramana Vieira is known for singing romantic, passion-filled ballads in the traditional Fado-style of Portuguese music. Performing on Maui on Friday and Sunday, this conservatory-trained Portuguese-American musician also sings American classics and jazzy blues. Vieira has been described by Mundo Portugues newspaper as the “new voice of Portuguese world music,” and The Boston Globe praised her as, “one of the pioneers of a unique hybrid of fados with a contemporary 21st century spin.”

Joined by Jeff Furtado on guitar, Andrea Walls on violin, and Danny M. on bass, she performs at 7:45 p.m. Friday at Wailuku’s The Coffee Attic. At 3 p.m. Sunday she performs at Casanova Italian Restaurant & Deli in Makawao. Tickets are $15 for each show and are available at www.brownpaper tickets.com. For more information, call The Coffee Attic at 250-9555; and Casanova’s at 572-0220.

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Bone Thugs-N-Harmony has been praised by MTV as “the most melodic hip-hop group of all time.” Best known for their fast-paced rapping style and harmonizing vocals, the band is one of the most successful hip-hop groups, selling more than 50 million records.

A review by the East Bay Times of a concert this month that included headliner Ice Cube, praised: “The best act during the five-hour-plus show was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Bone is certainly one of the greatest vocal groups in hip-hop history. It was a treat to hear the five band members blend their voices in often-amazing fashion on such songs as “1st of tha Month.”

• Bone Thugs-N-Harmony perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the MACC’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $39.50, $49.50, $59.50, $69.50 and VIP for $125 (plus applicable fees). All price categories are reserved seats except for the $69.50 tickets, which only offer access to the orchestra pit/dance floor. This is a standing-only ticket in front of the stage with no seats provided. VIP ticket price includes premium reserved seat, access to the dance floor and a meet and greet with the artists. Prices will increase day-of show.

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The concert by popular rapper Ja Rule at the MACC on Friday has been cancelled. For more information about ticket refunds, call the box office at 242-7469.

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Father and son Pat Simmons and Pat Simmons, Jr. will team up for a special concert at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21 in the MACC’s McCoy Studio Theater.

A founding member of the Doobie Brothers, Pat Sr. most recently teamed with some of Nashville’s brightest stars on the album “Southbound,” reinterpreting some of the Doobie Brothers’ greatest hits. He composed many songs for the iconic band, including “South City Midnight Lady,” “Dependin’ On You,” “Echoes of Love” and their first number one hit, “Black Water.”

Pat Jr.’s music career began as a teen, when he first began opening as a solo act for the Doobie Brothers. His debut EP, “This Mountain,” was nominated for two Na Hoku Hanohano Awards. When he’s not performing, he runs a small-scale organic farm.

Tickets are $30, $45 and $65 (plus applicable fees). They go on sale to MACC members on Friday.

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