Teresa Bright

Hawaiinawa is a exciting new CD release from beloved Hawaiian musician Teresa Bright. This new concept CD was inspired by the Japanese love for the Hawaiian culture, music and hula. Hawiinawa also draws in the recent popularity of Okinawan music among Japan’s younger generation. Hawaiinawa brings these two cultures together and entwines Okinawan music with the sweet gentle language and sounds of Hawai’i. Hawaii and Okinawa have so many similiarities. They are island that were once independent kingdoms, rule by ancient chiefs who were overthrown by other nations. Okinawa and Hawaii also share two seasons, winter and summer and the same temperatures through the year. This is a unique and captivating collection of music and the cultures that is recorded in the Hawaiian language and arranged with the the Kiho’alu (slack key) tunings. It is all all flavored with the vocal style of Teresa Bright.

Hawaiinawa is unique in so many ways. It’s listening of classic popular and traditional Okinawan tunes translated into Hawaiian. It's also the award-winning singer-songwriter's first album of all-new material released in more than five years. For the last decade, Teresa Bright has focused her work in Japan, where Hawaiian music and hula are always popular and in demand. She has realeased 15 albums since her 1990 debut "Self Portrait" won four Hoku — including album of the year and female vocalist of the year.

Teresa Bright is an in-demand producer for Japanese vocalists seeking a guiding hand and wanter her help in duplicating her honeyed, sublimely sultry yet sunny contemporary and traditional Hawaiian sound. Her music has also been licensed by Sapporo Beer for use in a number of Japanese commercials. Given the five years since her last release, "Lei Ana" and the unexpected aspect of arranging a handful of Okinawan songs Hawaiian-style, you might think Hawaiinawa began its life as somekind of passion project for Bright.

In September 2006, Bright's Japan manager suggested she record classic Okinawan popular music with Hawaiian-language vocals and a mix of Island-style ki ho'alu, 'ukulele and Okinawan sanshin. Teresa Bright said that Hawaiian music is really popular with the young kids in Japan right now. "But I didn't understand at first because I wasn't familiar with the popular Okinawan songs. I love different music, though. I thought it was interesting." Even though she was unfamiliar with the music of Okinawa, Bright was on board with the idea of recording the album.

Bright was asked to listen to more than 40 songs to soak in and determine if she could do anything with them before starting the project. Oddly enough, the more Teresa Bright listened to the songs which were in their original form and featured the raucously high vocals and hard-plucked sanshin of traditional Okinawan music, the more she visualized what they could sound like with her own more subtle and delicate voice and low-key Hawaiian instrumentation. "I could begin hearing the slack-key guitar playing some of these songs. I could hear the 'ukulele. And I could hear how the sanshin would play along with them," she said . And from there, she just picked out the songs she thought she could arrange for her voice. Bright went on to select the music. He feelings from the start were that the literal meanings of the songs would be secondary to the music. In other words, she wanted to be able to wrap her voice around them. She wanted ki ho'alu and 'ukulele arrangements that would work with the structure. Teresa Bright learned to sing the songs phonetically in their original versions to start with. She had to use more of her high tones since the original music was structured for hard rather than the sweet tones that are so familiar to Bright. She was able to soften the harshness of the lyrics but raised her vocal register a bit higher than normal. This kept it soft and soothing.

Teresa Bright chose to not read literal translations of the songs at the beginning of the project. Instead, she found a connection with Hawai'i by studying Okinawan culture, history, geography and musical origins. She researched the Okinawan migration to the Hawaiian Islands for sugar plantation work and the songs the workers brought with them when they arrived in Hawaii. She found great similarities with the Hawaiian people. Okinawans once had their own kingdom and were overthrown. They were fishing people, people of the land, gentle people. They were much the same as the Hawaiians. She discovered greater similarities when she read the English translations of the songs.

The songs were about men going out to sea to fish; they were songs about women missing them. There were a lot of songs about love. A lot of songs were about flowers. Bright's main goals for translating the basic English translations she'd received into Hawaiian included preserving the meaning and feeling of the original Japanese words and properly fitting Hawaiian-language pronunciation and phrasing into the song's original music structure. Where no Hawaiian word was a perfect match for a Japanese word, she selected the closest match in meaning that fit phonetically. Whole Japanese phrases were left intact when the words felt so pretty and so right. .She said the meanings fit and the words flowed correctly from them. While Bright was still translating lyrics she began writing and recording the album's musical arrangements. Musicians on Hawaiinawa included Ben Vegas and Dwight Kanae on acoustic guitar, Pua'a Auwai on bass, Bobby Ingano on steel guitar and Pekelo Honomua on percussion. Teresa Bright played 'ukulele.

Since 1997, Bright has recorded at least one album a year exclusively for the Japanese market She arranges and records her music on O'ahu. "Hawaiinawa" was scheduled for release only in Japan where it has been on sale and its music widely played on the radio. Bright has also nurtured a lucrative career over the last six years producing CDs for young female Japanese singers seeking her vocal and phrasing expertise and skills with Hawaiian instrumentation. The singers come to O'ahu to work with Bright.

Celebrating Hawaiian Spirit