The Golden Lehua Tree

The mother of slack-key treasure Keola Beamer proves that his talent has been handed down through the generations with a collection of stories and songs including some learned from Nona's mother. Many of the stories are told from the first-person point of view of local landmarks ("Twin Sisters"), flora ("the Golden Lehua Tree") and fauna ("Tree Shells"), demonstrating the Hawaiian people's close intimacy with nature while explaining the cultural significance of island geography. Other stories are just for fun, such as a humorous tale about the Sunday when the Beamers' Dalmatian, Boki, made an unwelcome visit to church. On each track, Nona is backed by Keola plus other family members on guitar nose flute, ukulele, bass, and, according to the liner notes, "further embarrassments." This last credit refers to the ersatz dog howls on "Boki" as well as the accompaniment to a crazy song sung by Keola about the unlikely menagerie that lives "'Neath One Big Tin Roof."