Courtesy photo Kevin and Ikaika Brown will perform at the annual Kī hō‘alu Guitar Festival on Sunday.

Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winning musician Kevin Brown is among the celebrated artists playing at the free 35th annual Kī hō’alu Guitar Festival at the MACC on Sunday.

“I look forward to it every year,” said Brown. “The sad part is the ones that I used to play with, you don’t see them anymore. Then you have the up and coming ones, and then you feel good because the other ones passed away, but you get the newer ones coming in and the slack key festival and the music will still continue on.”

Performing on Maui since the early 1970s, including many years with his brother Sheldon Brown in the acclaimed Waiehu Sons, the veteran musician will perform at the festival with his Hōkū-winning son Ikaika Brown, who is flying back from his Las Vegas home.

Courtesy photo
Kevin Brown said of the Kī hō’alu Guitar Festival that he looks forward to it every year.

Brown said his son will perform with him at the show, joined by his two young daughters. He will also perform at the fest with Wilson Kanakole, Roy Kato, and Kalani Miles.

“Ikaika started playing for (the festivals) since he was 12 years old,” said Brown. “He’s been playing ever since until he left Maui in 2013. That’s when he went to Vegas. In Vegas, he does house parties or stuff for his friends, and he brings his two daughters with him. They’re 7 and five. I said, you know what would be nice, feature the girls. They should do ‘Kalo Man,’ because ‘Kalo Man’ is a song that he wrote when he was in the 7th grade.”

As a student at Iao Intermediate School, Ikaika Brown released his debut recording, the Hōkū-nominated “Kalo Man,” dedicated to the art of Hawaiian slack key guitar.

“He got nominated for the 1996 Nā Hōkū for the instrumental album and also for the most promising artist,” Brown recalled. “He was up against John Cruz, and John Cruz had no idea who Ikaika was. We went to the Nā Hōkūs and shook hands with John. He looked down at Ikaika and he said, ‘You’re Ikaika Brown, but you’re just a kid.’ To this day, John and Ikaika are like brothers.”

Among his other albums, the Hōkū-winning “Three Generations – ‘Ekolu Hanauna Nei” featured the 17-year-old Ikaika with his father and grandfather Harry H. Brown Sr., performing a diverse spectrum of material that included classic Hawaiian songs such as “Hi’ilawe” and “Aloha ‘Oe,” and original compositions by all three family members.

Kevin Brown was among the musicians playing on the Grammy nominated compilation

“Hawaiian Slack Key Kings,” and on the Hōkū nominated “Hawaii Slack Key Guitar Festivals – Volume II.” And he played on “Lana’i Slack Key Festival – Live Kiho’alu at Ke’ele,” which won the 2013 compilation Hōkū Award.

Discovering Hawaiian slack key guitar one day as a freshman student at Baldwin High School changed his life. He had cut a math class and encountered a teacher, Henry Meyer Jr., playing under a banyan tree.

“I was hiding in the banyan tree in the courtyard waiting for the recess bell to ring, and along comes a teacher with his guitar and the students are following him,” Brown recalled. “He passes me, sits the kids down, and he started playing. That’s when I was like, wow, what kind of music is that? The recess bell rang, and I asked him, what kind of music was that? He said, ‘it’s Hawaiian music they call slack key.’ I asked him, can you teach me how to play?”

Excited, Brown headed home, wondering “how I can touch my father’s guitar without him knowing, because we were not allowed yet. So I go in his bedroom, pull the guitar out, tune it down to slack, because my father plays regular. My father gets home around 4.30, I can hear the truck coming up the road, so I quickly tune the guitar back to standard, put him in the case and sit him under the bed.”

He did that for four years. “Every time Mr. Meyer taught me a song, I would come home and practice until I heard my father’s truck and tuck the guitar away. Freshman through my senior year. I surfed all my life, and I just thought I was going to be a surfer all my life, not knowing that music was going to be my passion, and slack was going to be it.”

He currently performs at Leilani’s on the Beach at 6 p.m. on Mondays, and at 5 p.m. on Wednesdays at Hale Pau Hana in Kihei. “That’s perfect for me,” he said. “I used to have five gigs before, but I just turned 74.”

Does he still surf?

“No, I stop once I put the ring on my wife’s finger. But I still get the rush. Every time I pass Kahului Harbor and see the waves breaking, I get the rush.”

The 35th annual Kī hō’alu Guitar Festival is presented at the MACC on Sunday from 4 p.m. Admission is free. The lineup also includes Jeff Peterson, Bobby Moderow, Anthony Pfluke, Darrell Aquino, Piʻilani Arias, Ryder Briley, Nāmaka Cosma, Shem Kahawaiʻi, Kamuela Kahoano, Dwight Kanae, Kahiau Lam Ho, and Micah Lau.