FIFTEEN years ago, when Robert Kekaula was only about 17 years old and seven stones lighter than he is now, I (also quite a pile of stones lighter than I am now) was fiddling around with the three or four chords I knew on my guitar, making up songs that were going to make me rich one day. Write stuff good
enough for songSometimes late at night or at parties, after consuming a number of adult beverages, I would attempt to play these songs in public. Those who heard them were utterly amazed. Utterly amazed that I thought the songs would make me rich one day.
The problem wasn't so much my guitar work, because I can play the same three or four chords over and over again with the best of them. And everyone knows that if you know four chords, you know one more than you need to play 90 percent of all country/western songs ever written.
The problem is the melodic quality of my voice, which has been called "a slow leak in a large truck tire," "Darth Vader breathing helium," and "just a little deeper than an Alvin and the Chipmunks record played at high speed."
Another problem were the subjects, such as one called "H.P.D.," which was about a kid who gets bullied in high school and seeks revenge in later life as a Honolulu police officer. I actually played it at Tony Roma's in Waikiki one night much to the discomfort and bedevilment of the audience, which, I later learned, included some off-duty cops. Especially considering the chorus went something like: "I got my badge, I got my gun, now. Gonna kick some butt, gonna have some fun, now."
I also wrote some blues, like, "My baby she's no light-weight, she weighs 400 pounds. It wouldn't look so bad, ya'll, if her arms didn't drag across the ground."
Willie Nelson's career was not in jeopardy.
There was, however, one song I liked a lot about a local guy who makes some money at a Kunia cockfight and flies to Las Vegas to get rich. Instead, he gets stuck living on rice, throwing dice and hoping to get home one day. I called it "Local Boy in Vegas."
THE trouble was, there was no one around to sing it. I tried to pass it off to my old high school girlfriend, Sonya Mendez, as "Local Girl In Vegas," but she was performing with purple hair at The Wave Waikiki at the time and didn't think it'd fit into her repertoire.
So years drifted by and I continued to sing it to myself or my dog late at night until one year I quit doing it. And those years of not doing it began to pile up.
By now you may be wondering what Robert Kekaula has to do with this. Well, as the years went by, Robert graduated from high school, did some college, went into broadcasting and became well-known as a local sportscaster, musician and sometime actor. He came out with a CD of his songs that did pretty well. In fact, some friends of mine loved his album. And after a long, appropriately boozy night I tuned my friend's guitar and began to try to remember "Local Boy In Vegas." Despite, or perhaps because of, our condition, my friends liked it and said, "You ought to let Robert Kekaula hear that."
So I did. I went over to the television station and played it for Robert. He began to play along on his ukulele. Then he began to sing. It sounded absolutely nothing like the way I sang it. It sounded good.
That was about two years ago. The point of story is that Robert's second album, "Daddy's Little Girl," hits the stores this week and "Local Boy In Vegas" is on it. Robert dropped off a copy of the CD and it was an amazing thing to actually hear the song sound the way it should. No, I'm not going to get rich off of it. But late at night, after a few beers, I like to cue up "Local Boy In Vegas" and try to remember 15 years ago when life was simpler, everyone was skinnier and dreams could be built on three or four chords.