Multi Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winning musician Nathan Aweau performs solo at George Kahumoku, Jr.’s Slack Key Show. Courtesy photo

One of Hawaii’s most accomplished musicians, Nathan Aweau, began amassing Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards beginning with the release of “E Apo Mai” in 2002, which earned him Male Vocalist of the Year and Song of the Year.

Then in 2006 he achieved unprecedented success winning Male Vocalist for his solo album “Hawaii Classic Series Vol. 1,” Jazz Album of the Year for his CD “Bass Etude,” which highlighted his amazing bass playing, and Album of the Year and Contemporary Hawaiian Album for HAPA’s “Maui.”

His latest recording, “Ho’omana’o,” earned him Hōkūs for Male Vocalist and Island Music Album in 2023.

“I feel honored that my peers find my music worthy,” says Aweau. “If I’m nominated a lot of times, I don’t go (to the ceremony) mainly because I’m on tour. The Hōkū board call me about performing and I try to turn it down because there’s younger, up-and-coming musicians that want to do that. I had my chance.”

A classical music graduate from the University of Hawaii, it’s remarkable that Aweau typically composes all the songs on his albums and often plays most of the instruments. He played everything on “Ho’omana’o.”

“I enjoy every aspect of making music,” he explains. “I have a little recording studio and I forced myself to learn about the equipment and everything. The music writing came a lot easier to me, including the arrangements. I can see this full picture already, how it should sound. Then from there, I just slowly put a puzzle together, whether it’s on the piano or the guitar, or the bass or whatever. I slowly start putting the pieces together, and then I’ll mix and master it.”

Aweau will perform solo at George Kahumoku, Jr.’s Slack Key Show at the Napili Kai Beach Resort on April 9. “Ever since I left HAPA I’ve been pretty much solo about 99% of the time,” he says. “It will be Hawaiian, but I do write a lot of adult contemporary songs, and I’ll probably feature a couple of those. I will feature my bass towards the ending of the show. I’ll do maybe 10 minutes of a jazz solo-ish kind of thing.”

A former lead singer with The Aliis, and bass player, band arranger and vocalist with Don Ho for 16 years, it was the Waikiki icon who suggested he compose Hawaiian songs.

“I did a lot of writing and arranging for him and one night he came up to me, and he knew that I was putting out my first album,” Aweau recalls. “All the songs were basically English songs that I wrote. And he told me, ‘I like your music, but I don’t think you can write Hawaiian music.’ He put that out as a challenge. Literally that night, I went home, grabbed my guitar, and I put a few chords together and a melody and asked my father to help me with the Hawaiian language. And that song became Song of the Year. I realized that door just opened up big time. Because of that, I really appreciated who I am as a Hawaiian person, and Hawaiian language and everything about it. When I was young, I never listened to Hawaiian music, even though I’m Hawaiian and I live in Hawaii.”

Growing up on Oahu, both his parents were classically trained, and he recalls, “I heard a lot of classical music, a lot of jazz.”

Later at the University of Hawaii, “everything was basically Western music, classical music and jazz. When I became Don Ho’s bass player, I started listening to more and more Hawaiian music, basically because of him. I slowly morphed into getting into Hawaiian music. When I really got into Hawaiian music, I became one half of the group HAPA.

Following the release of “E Apo Mai,” he was invited by Barry Flanagan to join HAPA and help revitalize the duo on their albums “It’s A Slack Key World,” which included tracks by Pat Simmons of the Doobie Brothers and Ernie Cruz, Jr., and on the award winning “Maui.”

A versatile multi-instrumentalist and gifted Hawaiian falsetto singer he introduced funk and jazz flavoring to the popular group that was evident on “Maui’s” instrumental track “Twinkletoes,” where he paid tribute to some of the gods of electric bass like Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke and Victor Wootan.

His success continued with the remarkable solo release “‘Io,” which earned him Hōkū awards for Island Album and Song of the Year for the beautiful “Uhiwai” in 2013. He followed up with another astonishing recording, “‘Aina Hanau,” where, just like on “‘Io,” he composed all the songs, played all the instruments, sang all the vocal parts and arranged, produced, mixed and mastered the disc.

“Because I have that background of jazz and classical, my thought was not really on how can I utilize what I’ve learned and put it into my Hawaiian music, per se, but it just came naturally,” he says. “Even if I tried to make it sound traditional Hawaiian, it never came out that way. So that’s my niche where my music is in the Hawaiian language, and yet I’m able to utilize my background of other genres.”

Aweau reports he’s constantly creating new music, and is working on a new album for 2025 release and contemplating producing another jazz album.

“As far as writing, I can’t turn it off,” he says. “It always exists. It happens wherever I’m at, especially when I’m by myself. The music just comes like crazy. When I have to write, I’ll go to Kahana Bay. I’ll just sit there on the water’s edge and start playing, and everything just comes. My whole focus is just so intense. Sometimes I’m shaking.

“I told my father one time there’s something about Kahana Bay that when I go there, my whole senses are very sharp and very directed towards what I’m doing as far as writing music. He said that’s where my ohana, that’s where my family’s from.”

Aweau will perform at the Napili Kai Beach Resort’s Aloha Pavilion at 6:30 p.m. April 9. Tickets are $42.90 and $63.60. For more, go to Kahumoku.com/calendar.