A special performance for our 2021 online festival! Watch the performance anytime on festival day by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp1mx8zxAEw&t=1s
In Hawaii, poi dogs are mongrels or hybrids, whatever way you want to look at it. Wes’s music reflects this and is a hybrid music incorporating ki ho`alu (Hawaiian slack key) using 12-string, 6-string, national steel and baritone ukulele. Original and insightful, contemporary Hawaiian music with cross-cultural twists.
Wes is just a local boy from the island of Maui in the middle of the big blue Pacific Ocean and he has been gifted with the talent to sing, play music and write some good songs. His roots are in Hawaii where his music has grown into a beautiful mongrel mix of influences just like the people who live there — east, west, Hawaiian, Haole, indigenous, pop, rock, reggae, folk, blues, jazz and whatever else tickles the ears. He is a singer-songwriter who plays many different stringed instruments including slack key (ki hoalu), modal and open tunings on guitar. Last year, he was nominated for the Na Hoku Hanohano Music Awards in the category of Best Acoustic Contemporary Album of the year for Under Da Mango Tree, Beside Da Mountain Stream-The Maui Years. His musical influences include Gabby Pahinui, Keola Beamer, Olomana, Taj Mahal, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt, Joni Mitchell, Buffy St. Marie, Robbie Roberson, Ry Cooder, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen, Leo Kotke, John Fahey, U2, the Grateful Dead, the Incredible String Band, Indian ragas, Madi Gras Indians, pow wow drumming, Celtic tunes, Walt Whitman, e e cummings, William Blake and various delta blues street singers, gypsy guitar players, outlaw country singers and midnight gospel choirs.