Folk Songs Hawaii Sings

Book excerpt: Folk Songs Hawaii Sings is a sparkling compilation of melodies from the islands of Polynesia together with a variety of folk songs that countless Asian people have brought with them to their new home in the Hawaiian Islands. In one sense it is a musical picture of the renowned harmonious blend of people who reside in Hawaii today; in another, it is a colorful record of ties with the Eastern world and ancestral heritage in line with the same American tradition that saw songs of the soil and the sea brought to the United States from Europe in an earlier age. All the songs and more, whether from Hawaii or Samoa, China or Japan, the Philippines, Okinawa, or Mongolia, are melodic bearers of traditions and aspirations, or vehicles of simple pleasures that form the background of the people who today share the hospitable sun of the Hawaiian Islands with their Caucasian neighbors. These melodies and rhythms have found their way into the many festivals and musical presentations that are so much a way of life in the welcome addition to the American Union.