Keola Beamer, born Keolamaikalani Breckenridge Beamer, stands among the foremost practitioners of Hawaiian slack key guitar. He composed “Honolulu City Lights,” which ranks among the most successful recordings ever issued in Hawaii, and ranks among the earliest artists to fuse ancestral Hawaiian chants and instruments with modern stylistic elements. As the fifth-generation musician in his lineage, he claims descent from King Kamehemeha and Queen Ahiakumai, the 15th-century monarchs of Hawaii. His great-grandmother Helen Dasher Beame (1882–1952) produced an extensive body of songs while also earning recognition as a leading hula performer. Beamer launched his professional path by providing musical accompaniment for dancers at his mother’s hula studio in Honolulu and later documented numerous compositions originating with his forebears. After completing classical-guitar studies in both high school and college, he offered private lessons and authored the instructional volume Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, which adapts a 16th-century lute tablature system.
His first long-form release, Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar in the Real Old Style, appeared in 1972. Although his initial ten albums emerged on modest independent imprints with circulation limited to Hawaii, wider audiences discovered his work after 1994. The Dancing Cat releases Wooden Boat, Moe'uhane Kika: Tales from the Dream Guitar, and Mauna Kea: White Mountain Journal—issued through George Winston’s Windham Hill distribution—each registered on Billboard’s Top World Music Albums chart. His fourth Dancing Cat project, Kolonahe: From the Gentle Wind, reached stores in April 1999. Subsequent titles include Island Born in 2001, Soliloquy: Ka Leo O Loko in 2002, and Mohala Hou: Music of the Hawaiian Renaissance in 2003. Hawaii’s Keola and Kapono Beamer followed in 2008, while the 2010 collaboration Keola Beamer and Raiatea paired him with Raiatea Helm. Malama Ko Aloha (Keep Your Love) surfaced in 2012. Beamer maintains his home in the historic whaling port of Lahaina on Maui.
