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On his most recent full-length album, “Chapter of the Forest,” Trevor Hall paid tribute to our sacred mountain, with the prayerful track “O Haleakala.”
“Sit in the Earth and hear Her wisdom,” Hall sings. “She spoke through water and swaying trees, We went around Her, Cows in the pasture, We drove towards the sun.”
“It’s one of my favorite songs on the album,” Hall explains. “My wife and I took our honeymoon to Maui and we stayed just below Haleakala and went up there and felt a powerful connection. It’s a spot we hold dear in our hearts.”
An inspiring, soulful artist, blessed with an emotive vocal style reminiscent of a mellow Eddie Vedder, Hall casts spellbinding songs with an acoustic, roots base flavored with reggae, electro-pop, Indian and some Native American influences.
The Indian influences are apparent on tracks like “Holy Country” and the opening “Jagadeesha” chant, which serves as an invocation to the whole project.
“I studied some Indian music in the states, and there’s a teacher in India I study with,” he notes. “India is a place that changed my life. I consider it home in a way. The influence naturally comes out in any album, but it really came out a lot in ‘Chapter of the Forest.’ “
Among the album’s highlights, the powerful “The Promise Land” is a poignant, heartfelt expression of internal and external alienation, where he wonders about the exodus in his soul.
“I love to play that one live,” he says. “It’s another favorite on the record. Sometimes I don’t feel at home. The song is based on what’s going on around me, and also based on what’s going on inside. Why don’t I feel at home in my own skin? It’s just a song about hey, what are we doing? Just take a breath and look around. It’s powerful.”
Another powerful track, “Obsidian,” which effectively employs Native American chanting, was inspired by a vision. “Last night I saw a blazing stallion,” he sings. “Coming with a full battalion, His black mouth spit flames, Burning up our evil ways.”
“It’s a song I wrote about a friend, Nahko, who is from Hilo. He has an amazing band called Medicine for the People. When I first went to see him live, I had a bit of a vision, it was a spiritual experience. I drove back home and stayed up all night and wrote that song. It’s an ode to the spirit moving through him.”
Praising the album, a Decoy Music review noted, “There are few people making music as genuine, authentic, earnest, appreciative, thankful and joyous as Trevor Hall in the world today.”
Whatever subject he illuminates, his songs resonate with conviction. They uplift with a joyful spirit that is both comforting and hopeful.
“It’s funny, even if I want to write a sad song or an angry song, somehow by the second verse they turn towards something positive,” he says with a laugh. “I’m thankful for that, it’s what naturally happens.”
At the age of 16, Hall recorded his first record, and the following year he left his South Carolina home to study classical guitar at Idyllwild Arts Academy, in the mountains east of Los Angeles. It was during this time that he came across a photo of the great Indian master Neem Karoli Baba.
“My friend had a picture of him on the wall in his dorm room,” he recalls. “That was the door. That one picture changed my whole life. The river changed its course.”
Since that moment, he’s been a frequent visitor to India where he spends time at the Yoga Vedanta Kutir ashram in Allahabad, and he helps raise funds for their orphanage. “Little by little, it’s really grown,” he says. “We were able to build a girls section and have been able to get them computers and pay for schooling and lodging. It’s been really rewarding.”
Hall just released a new EP, “Unpack Your Memories,” on Vanguard Records. This five-song collection includes some of Hall’s most personal tracks recorded solely by him, on his laptop.
“It was a sweet experience,” he concludes. “I had all these demos and I didn’t want these songs to get lost. I wanted people to hear them. I just recorded them in my home, and so they have a sweet intimacy.”
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On Saturday, when thousands of people around the world marched against the biotech giant Monsanto and its genetically modified crops and pesticides, rock legend Neil Young celebrated the protest, igniting Charley’s in Paia with a surprise gig backed by Promise of the Real blasting out songs from his forthcoming “The Monsanto Years” album.
It was an extraordinary night of mighty rocking music, one for the history books of amazing club shows on Maui.
Over the course of two sets Young performed new songs like “Rock Starbucks,” “Big Box,” “People Want To Hear About Love,” “Monsanto Years,” and the inspiring “New Day for the Planet,” with its hopeful chorus: “It’s a new day for our planet, it’s a new day for love.”
A phenomenal guitarist, Young thrilled the packed club with a ferocious version of his classic “Down by the River.” Other favorites included “The Loner” and “Walk On.” Lukas and Micah Nelson and the rest of Promise of the Real also seemed thrilled to be backing (and rocking with) this extraordinary music icon. Proceeds from the event will be donated to local Maui groups contesting GMO cultivation.
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The 16th annual Maui Film Festival opens on Wednesday with “Love & Mercy,” a critically acclaimed biopic about Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson.
Starring John Cusack, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks, this fact-based drama focuses on two significant periods in the musical legend’s life. Dano plays a young, “Pet Sounds” Wilson, while Cusack plays a 1980s-era-medicated Wilson, who has been under the spell of psychologist Eugene Landy (Giamatti), and is rescued by his future wife, car saleswoman Melinda Ledbetter (Banks).
Wilson has praised the film. “I thought it was very factual,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Some of it was rough for me to sit through. It wasn’t always pleasant.”
In the same Times article, Melinda Wilson praised Cusack’s performance. “He’s amazing. I don’t know how he did it – he just morphed himself into Brian.”
“Once in a while, you see a biopic that brings off something miraculous,” praised the BBC. “When you watch ‘Love & Mercy,’ you feel like you’re right there in the studio with him as he creates ‘Pet Sounds.’ And it’s a little like sitting next to Beethoven. The film is tender and moving, but also awe-inspiring.”
“Love & Mercy” received a standing ovation at its Toronto Film Festival premiere. It screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Celestial Cinema in Wailea. For more details, visit www.mauifilmfestival.com.
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Set in Paraguay, “Landfill Harmonic,” screening at 5 p.m. Sunday in Castle Theater at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, is an inspiring documentary about the transformative power of music. It focuses on a remarkable orchestra that plays instruments created out of trash.
The young musicians of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura all come from a slum that’s built upon a landfill. The 2,500 families who live there survive by separating garbage for recycling. When Favio Chavez, the orchestra’s director and founder, started working on a recycle program at Cateura in 2006, he decided to open a music school for the slum’s children, which in turn led to the Recycled Orchestra project.
The Orchestra has offered the kids a new alternative to the life their parents had. “My life would be worthless without music,” says a girl in the film. For more information, visit www.mauifilmfestival.com.
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It was no surprise that Keali’i Reichel’s superb album “Kawaiokalena” swept the 38th Na Hoku Hanohano Awards on Saturday, winning in eight categories.
This homage to his Upcountry home and its transcendent surroundings won Album of the Year, Hawaiian Music Album, Male Vocalist, Song of the Year and Hoku Mele.
While a number of Maui musicians had also been nominated, only Amy Hanaiali’i and Willie K won an award for Contemporary Album for their innovative “Reunion,” and Maui’s Ikaika Blackburn and his group Na Hoa earned a Hoku for EP (Extended Play) of the Year for “Cha-lang-a-lang Christmas.”
In early May, the Hawai’i Academy of Recording Arts presented Lifetime Achievement Awards to Maui musicians Henry Kaleialoha Allen, Richard Ho’opi’i (and his late brother Sol), Jimmy Mo’ikeha and Puamana, founded by Irmgard Farden Aluli.
Drummer Jimmy C presents a CD release party performing with Makai Jazz tonight from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Mulligans on the Blue in Wailea for his album “Love Wants to Dance.” The band also includes Shiro Mori, Marcus Johnson and Bruce Boege.