“BLACK SAND: THE BEST OF KALAPANA”

Kalapana

(Manifesto MFO 45236)

Forty-five years after Malani Bilyeu, Mackey Feary, D.J. Pratt and Kirk Thompson founded Kalapana, the group stands next to Cecilio & Kapono as one of the two biggest Hawaii recording acts of the 1970s. Kalapana sold out the Waikiki Shell in 1975, back when selling out the Shell meant selling more than 10,000 tickets. Kalapana then partnered with C&K in a double-bill that drew more than 30,000 people to Aloha Stadium in December 1976 — the biggest concert by local headliners at the stadium in the 1970s.

In 1977 Kalapana officially became a sextet, when Alvin Ferjarang and Michael Paulo were elevated from sidemen to group members, and Randy Aloya replaced Feary. Kalapana also left Hawaii, ended up in Japan, and broke up there. In 1983 “Uncle Tom” Moffatt got almost all of them back together for a reunion concert at the Shell and a “live in concert” album. In 1985 Bilyeu, Feary and Pratt resurrected Kalapana with Gaylord Holomalia (keyboards) and Kenji Sano (bass). Feary died in 1999, but Bilyeu, Pratt and Holomalia continue to be the core of the group.

This 20-song “best of” anthology comes with an 18-page illustrated liner notes booklet that makes it a good introduction to Kalapana as it was through the early 1980s. However, calling it a “best of’” collection is off the mark. Eight or nine of the songs are truly classics from Kalapana’s first four albums. Many of the others are songs that were recorded for Japanese record labels after most of the original members had left — and were never released in Hawaii.

The later recordings are archival curiosities, and certainly of interest to fans who want complete collections of everything recorded under the Kalapana name. However, there are many songs more deserving of inclusion in a “best of” project, such as “Down By The Sea” from the “Many Classic Moments” album, Kalapana’s remake of “When the Morning Comes,” and the original studio recording of “Girl” from Kalapana III.

Nothing Kalapana recorded after 1983 made the “best of” cut. There’s nothing from the six albums Kalapana recorded between 1986 and 1996, and nothing from Kalapana’s Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning albums of 2003 and 2009 either.

The liner notes suggest why this is. They reveal that Kalapana recently won a legal action finally giving them full worldwide recording and publishing rights to their early recordings, and that Kalapana is at long last receiving royalties for recordings their fans have loved since the 1970s.

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