Accepting his first-ever Na Hoku Hanohano awards after more than 50 years on the local music scene, Maui musician Tarvin Makia had some words of wisdom for the next generation.

“I just want to let all the young ones know, it’s never too late,” said the 67-year-old Makia, who got his start playing in a Waikiki nightclub at age 16.

Makia and his A’ea’e bandmates — Hawaiian language composer and UH-Maui professor Keola Donaghy, legendary composer and producer Kenneth Makuakane and veteran Nashville-based musician Jeff Dayton — won Group of the Year at the awards ceremony on Saturday night in Honolulu, as well as Hawaiian EP of the Year for their debut EP, “A’ea’e.”

The group was nominated in four categories, and Makia said he would have been grateful just to come away with one.

“In my mind I said, you know, I would be thankful with one. … It would just be nice to have a little star on my desk, you know?” Makia said of the iconic trophy. “As the ballots were going through, I just kept clapping for everybody and thinking, these are all hard-working musicians. Amazing. And it’s good for them. Finally when it came to our category, and they mentioned our name. … I smiled and said, wow, here we go. I get to go up on stage and get the one that I’ve been hoping for.”

The recently formed band brings together longtime friends and occasional collaborators, each with plenty of experience and accolades of their own. Their music is a mix of country and contemporary Hawaiian — case in point, the Hawaiian language version of “Tennessee Whiskey,” for which Donaghy sought the original composer’s blessing. Makia credits Donaghy for having “masterminded a lot of the lyrics” on their EP and doing his homework to make sure everything was written and spoken correctly.

The band works because everyone is a veteran, able to pick up a popular song and harmonize and make changes together as they go, Makia said.

“Hawaiian music has always been affiliated with country,” he said. “And the reason for it is this: country music always tells you a little story from beginning to end. Hawaiian music has the same chemistry. That’s why they both go hand in hand.”

Another winner on Saturday night was a Maui-grown artist who counts Makia as a mentor — Kala’e Camarillo, who won his second and third Hoku awards with EP of the Year for “Child of These Islands” and Christmas Single of the Year for “It’s Christmas Time Again.”

“I’m super grateful and honored to have been nominated,” Camarillo said Monday. “But to win is a dream come true.”

Camarillo got to perform a song from his EP, “Old Kihei,” along with Robi Kahakalau, Jeff Rasmussen and Harrison Murray on Saturday night.

“The whole theme of the album was just songs about the people and places that I love,” said Camarillo, who was born and raised in Kihei and remembers living right up the road from the beach, playing basketball at Kalama Park and spending time at his mom’s Azeka shop, Kihei-Wailea Flowers By Cora.

Camarillo moved to Oahu for college and ended up staying after finding a job teaching music at Kapalama Elementary School, “following in the same footsteps” as his dad, who teaches ukulele at Kamehameha Schools Maui. He says he comes home to Maui “just to slow down every once in awhile.”

Camarillo is finishing up a song about Kula that he plans to release in the next couple of months and hopes to do a full-length album next year in between his teaching job and his music gigs four to five times a week.

Renowned Maui artist and kumu hula Keali’i Reichel also won a Hoku in the Haku Mele category for “Nani Wale ‘O Pi’iholo,” which speaks to his love for Pi’iholo and the importance it holds in Hawaiian language and culture. It features on the album “Ka Haku Mele,” a project that brought together four Hawaiian language composers — Reichel, Cody Pueo Pata, Kainani Kahaunaele and Zachary Alaka’i Lum — to help spotlight the unique attributes and process of haku mele.

Three-time Grammy-winning Maui singer Kalani Pe’a also came away with a Hoku on Saturday night for Contemporary Album of the Year for “Purple Hawaiian Christmas.” Pe’a was also a featured performer on “Hawaiian Falsetto Vol. 1” by Festivals of Aloha, which won the Compilation Album of the Year (Producer’s Award) and the Hawaiian Engineering award for Michael Casil. The collection celebrates several past champions of the two-decade Richard Ho’opi’i Leo Ki’eki’e Falsetto Contest on Maui. It was produced by Daryl Fujiwara and Wailau Ryder.

* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.