When my mother called me in St. Louis, Missouri early in the morning to tell me that Israel Kamakawiwo'ole had died, I had not listened to his music for a long time. But as soon as she hung up, I turned on his latest CD, and his voice came back to soothe me like the cool windward breezes of Oahu. As I do every time I hear his voice, I closed my eyes and was transported back to the islands again.
This is my 13th year on the mainland, and I still feel I am only just visiting. The first year was the worst just 18 and living away from my home, and desperate for something on the mainland that would fill me with the uhane (soul) of Hawaii. The care packages my parents and aunties would send were few and far between and with their battered boxes and miles of tape, they seemed too much like gifts from a distant place and only served to emphasize the distance between myself and my home.
Then one New York winter day, seven inches of snow on the ground, nearly out of my mind with longing, I wandered into one of those mainland music megastores and found myself in the International Music section. There, categorized between Germany and Ireland, I found an old C&K album on sale for $4.99, a compilation of synthesized Hawaiian music (the type suitable for fake fraternity luaus), Elvis Presleys Blue Hawaii, and The Makaha Sons of Niihau Live album. As soon as I picked it up, I knew this was the tonic I needed. There on the cover were the kind of people that were my neighbors growing up, the kind of people I went to school with. I bought it immediately and for the entire winter, I listened to nothing but that album in my ratty dorm room with the shades pulled down.
Hawaiian music is still the only thing that can completely submerge me back into the culture, the people, and the spirit that is Hawaii. And no one did that better than Israel Kamakawiwoole. Every new album gave me that chicken-skin feeling of being back on Muliwai Lane in Nuuanu, talking story with my grandmother while we strung shell leis to sell to the tourists in Waikiki. With his songs and his voice, I knew that even though I was here on the mainland, I would never be lonely again. I will miss him.
Even his name seemed magical -- Israel -- like the beckoning dream of a forgotten tribe. He crafted a music of commitment to the basic things in life: freedom, family, love for the islands and one another. He gave those things a voice. And what a voice it was. Here was a man who could absorb all the musical in)fluences into his body and produce an astonishing music with such feeling.
Whenever I played his CDs at work, his voice would stop passersby in their tracks, and their first comment would invariably be, "What a beautiful voice." I work with a group of cynical advertising executives, hardened individuals who deal daily in the currency of greed and deception, people who would never be caught singing a John Denver song, and yet they gather in my office to sing Israel's rendition of "Take Me Home Country Road." These people who have never heard of West Makaha and would never eat fishcake from the sea are nonetheless charmed by Israel's aloha and infectious good humor.
His largess is what I appreciated the most about Iz. Even though I did not know him personally, he made me feel like I did. In trying to explain to a mainland friend the loss of Israel, the closest comparison I could think of was Elvis, but even that comparison is inadequate because we were endeared by Israels private graces more than his public performances. Those vulnerable moments on his albums where he seemed to be talking directly to you in Facing Future where he talks about his parents, or "E Ala E" where he speaks from the heart about Hawaiian music. Even now, at the end of The Makaha Sons of Niihau Live album, when Israel and Skippy choke up when they give thanks to God, I choke up every time too.
This magnanimity permeated every aspect of Israel's recordings. I imagine he must have been a little troublesome to record with, consistently indifferent to consistency, playing and interpreting as the mood struck him, but it is precisely those spontaneous imperfect performances that I enjoy the most. Other fans can keep the polished studio recordings and magnificent staged performances of Kealii Reichel and the Brothers Cazimero. I prefer Israel's work because they burst with his personality. Every performance and recording was a reminder of what it means to live Hawaiian, his asides and acknowledgements of his audience demonstrating his pure joy of Hawaiian music. Israel was a man who was comfortable imbuing "Hawaii '78" with a profound gravity and then turning that into levity with a song like "The Fly." With that charisma, that vulnerability, that generosity, how could anyone not embrace the man?
Like the rest of Hawaii, I was hoping for one last great blowout reunion with the Makaha Sons. But since that wont happen, well have to hold onto all the gifts he left us. Like a great teacher, he leaves a legacy of love for family, community, and culture and a life lived in the knowledge that those are the most important things. I'd like to think that that wherever he is now, with his ohana and his brother Skippy, that we will all be there with him again, listening to those sweet melodies once more. But until that day, I will continue to listen to the recordings he left us and wait for that break in his voice, always timed perfectly to break my heart. 
photo copyright of Jon de Mello/The Mountain Apple Company
