 Hi, kakou. My name is Walter Kauai. I am your host for Ukulele Songs of Hawaii. Today we will step back in time and learn the history and the legacy of Kamaka Ukulele of Hawaii. Joining me today is my special guest, Mr. Chris Kamaka, grandson of its founder, Samuel Kai-Ali-Ili Kamaka. Hello, Chris. Hello, Walter. Thanks for having me. Thank you for taking time. I know how busy you are done at Kamaka, and so I appreciate you being here. Before Chris and I get into talking story, and we have a lot of pictures that will reminisce and take us back in time, I'd like to just start off by telling a little bit about the story of Kamaka Ukulele. Shortly after the turn of the century, Samuel Kai-Ali-Ili Kamaka began crafting corewood ukuleles from the basement of his Kaimuki home. In 1916, he formed his one man shop, Kamaka Ukulele and Guitar Works, and soon established a solid reputation for making only the highest quality ukuleles. And then in 1921, Kamaka Ukuleles, and if I could guess, are engineered to put up our first picture. There we go. I think that's, I think the address for that, Chris, is 1814 South King Street. Yeah, exactly. And I see the sign on there, it says Kamaka and son's Hawaiian Ukuleles. Gosh, when I look back at it, and I'm thinking of King Street now, and I'm like, wow. Yeah, it's actually was located right where on the corner where Giotaku restaurant is there, and then when they widened the road, that's when grandpa had to move, but in that convertible there was my uncle Fred, and with my mom. Oh my goodness. Oh, and then in the mid-20s, your grandfather, Sam Kamaka, laid out a pattern for a new, what he called, an oval shaped ukulele body type from the traditional, I guess you call it the eight figure. Yeah, figure eight, yeah. And so if I could ask our engineer to show it there, so we want to keep that picture, what a handsome looking luthier there. So that's grandpa. And he's holding up that ukulele. And so according to sources, it says that he laid out this pattern for an oval shaped ukulele body. His friends remarked that it looked like a pineapple, and so I guess that kind of stuck with the, and then eventually some of his friends painted the front to duplicate the fruit, the pineapple. Yeah. A few years later in 1928, Sam Kamaka patterned that particular design, thus began the original pineapple ukulele, which produced, according to sources, a resonant, mellow sound, very distinct of then the traditional figure eight type ukulele. Can we talk a little bit about that, because I've never actually played. So what do they mean in terms? He was kind of experimenting, you know, with the sound at the time. And it was a lot easier to bend the wood. In those days, all he had was a pipe and with the heating element inside, and he would just bend, you know, bend the wood over the heated pipe. So the pineapple shape was a lot easier for him to bend. And it eventually caught on to, you know, a lot of our, my aunts and uncles were, you know, entertainers, you know, with the Royal Hawaiian Girls Glee Club and down at Waikiki. So it kind of caught on with them. And then before you know it, you know, he was. Everybody wanted one of those, huh? Yeah. Wow. So I mean, before creating that body sound, I mean, was he already creating the figure eight shape? Was there a difference in sound? I mean, because you guys still sell them today. It's pretty close, you know, to the tone quality, but it's something a little different, you know. And do you folks, I mean, do you folks still sell? We still do. We still do. So I'm going to scroll down here. And that became an instant success worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. And it continues to be a good signature. I mean, we still get quite a few inquiries and orders for pineapple ukulele. I'm going to ask Rob, our engineer, if he can put up picture number three, I believe. There you go. So yeah, I'm looking at these two guys. So tell us who these are Chris. Okay, the one on the right, that's my dad. And he's holding up our centennial pineapple, which we made for our 100 year anniversary. And my uncle Fred is right behind him on the looks like a concert size. Those are two special ukuleles with binding and really high quality wood and inlays on the top. And yeah, and they're still my uncle still comes in every day to do the tour. Tuesday through Friday. And my dad, he's he's 97 now. And my uncle, I think is 90. It's made 95. So they're there. They still get around. And look at those smiles. So I mean, let's pause there for a second. So your dad is pretty much permanently retired. And Uncle Fred comes in to do his tour and then he goes home. So tell us about, you know, so who's running the business now? I mean, it's pretty much, well, my cousin Fred handles the office the office and all the bookworm and myself and my brother Casey, as well as my two sons, Christopher and Dustin, we were pretty much in the in the back with the making and all the production manufacturing production. Yeah, my son Dustin, he's a pilot now with Hawaii. So he only comes in part time, as well as Casey, who's also a pilot. But they're both a big addition. Christopher is basically the only son full time. Oh, nice. Do you have any emails that work in there for me, family? Family? No, but we have three, one, two, three in the back, female workers and two in the front. Yeah. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, we're going to get to talking about that particular location. So during the 30s, I believe, Sam Kamaka Sr. introduces two sons that we just saw, Chris's dad, which is Sam Jr. And then Chris's uncle, Sam's brother Fred. And that was that picture you saw to craft ukulele making even though the boys were only so they they got into the family business, just like you guys got started when they were young and it says in elementary school. Yeah. In 1945, I want to say the business was reorganized, and the name changed to Kamaka and son's enterprises. And so I'm going to ask Rob if he can throw up our next picture. Okay, there's the family. So we know your dad is on the on the left there on the ukulele and that uncle Fred and then directly behind my uncle is my brother Casey. And in the center with the red shirt is my son Christopher. Okay. And then behind him is my cousin Fred. And then this me on the left behind my dad. And your son Christopher, he's holding up a picture that's of your grandfather. Yes. That's the one that started everything. Yeah. That's the one. Really nice picture there. So tell us what happens after the two sons, you know, then there's a portion that I read somewhere that your dad or maybe both your dad and uncle Fred were drafted into the army. And so they they were out of the business. I'm assuming that your your grandpa still ran the business. Yeah, while they served in the military. Right. And you know, once they they widened the road, my grandfather had to move everything out to a lululee. We had we have we still have property out there and he moved all the machinery out there and built, you know, on the homestead land out there in Waianae. And dad was in Guadalcanal and and pretty much my uncle Fred was in the military until the early 70s when he retired. I remember because when I you know, the early days in the 60s when I used to come into the shop, I used to see uncle Fred in uniform sometimes. And I mean in transit or transit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I never knew. So when grandpa moved to the shop, the guitar works, yeah, from King Street, then for there was a time that he went out in lululee. Yeah. This was before he would come back where you permanently are today. Right. We're at 550 South Street. Yeah. Yeah. So he was out at Waianae and that's where he kind of he got ill. And then once, you know, the war was over, then my dad was away at school on the GI Bill. And he was studying to be an entomologist. Yes, I read about that. I never knew that about your dad. He's working on his PhD when he got the call. And he dropped everything, came home, took care of dad for about a year. He passed. And then, you know, he had all this machinery here and he said, decided to give it a try for a little while and see and the rest is history. The rest is history. That must have been a, I mean, for both your dad and your mom, that must have been a big decision, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I never knew that about your dad, that he was, you know, PhD and entomology. And I thought, wow. Yeah, he knows everything about bugs. Yeah. I had to look it up. What is entomology? The science of bugs, you know, from bugs to the lollimaking. Wow, okay. That's a story to tell. Now, in what year did the company move from that King Street location? Then they went to Lula Lulae for time. And you've been, so I do know that your kakaako, the business district location that you folks have been, I read somewhere that you folks have been there since 1959. Yeah. I think they built the shop in 1958. So, yeah. That 1959 is significant. Anybody out there knows that's a year of statehood for Hawaii. Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, tying that into, you know, Kamaka Ukulele, your grandpa, your dad, your uncle, now your generation and your son is already into the business dance in both your sons. I mean, it's really marvelous. I mean, if I had an audience looking right here, the audience would stand up and applaud because that is really something. I did read an article that said that this is the oldest and longest running family-owned business in all of Hawaii. And so I just, you know, on behalf of the people of Hawaii, I just want to say mahalo to you, Chris, and to your entire family for, you know, I mean, it sounds like both your dad and even yourself could have all gone in different directions. Exactly. But because of, you know, level family commitment and those kinds of things, you know, your dad, for example, was HD in entomology, you know, and decided, made a decision. I'm sure that must have been challenging for mom and dad. Yeah. It's a lot of work, you know, and, you know, you tend to really get to love it, you know, after trying it and getting into it. And it's not easy, you know, with family, you know, it's got its ups and downs, but all in all, it's been really, really great. You know, we haven't even touched on the fact that Chris is a well-known musician, and we're going to get to talking about that in a bit. I have another question. So, there have been several company name changes. Can you walk us through that just slightly? Initially, we saw there on King Street, where you mentioned Giotaku was, as today. That was known as Kamaka Ukulele and Guitar Works. And then it eventually went to Kamaka and Sun's Hawaiian Ukuleles, then Kamaka and Sun's Enterprises, and now Kamaka Hawaii. Kamaka Hawaii. Incorporated. Incorporated, yeah. When your dad and your uncle got involved in running the business, tell us, because I know your brother Casey flew for Aloha Airlines, and now he's still flying with Hawaiian Airlines. But what specifically does your brother Casey do? Because I remember years ago, you mentioned to me that he kind of does a lot of the specialty or custom Ukuleles. Does he continue to? Yeah. He still is pretty much in charge of our custom shop. Okay. And he does a lot of our, you know, research and development, and just actually purchasing and selecting our wood material. Yeah, the wood and stuff. And that's a big plus, man. That's a big part of it to you. He takes care of a lot of stuff for us, and plus flying, you know. Oh my gosh. I don't know how he handles that. And I know he had a son that attended Kamehameha School, yeah? Yeah. And he's at the University of San Diego, and the youngest boy is still, he's a junior at Kamehameha now. Okay. Well, lots to talk about with Chris and the Kamaka Hawaii and the legacy that they have established here in Hawaii when it comes to Ukuleles. So we're about ready to take a short break. We're going to be back. I'm your host, Walter Kawaii'a, for Ukuleles Songs of Hawaii. And my guest today, Chris Kamaka from the Kamaka Ukuleles of Hawaii. We'll be right back. Aloha. This is Rob Hack. My show is exporting from Hawaii every other Thursday from 12 to 12 30 p.m., where I bring in people involved in the entire exporting infrastructure in Hawaii, including government, academia, and manufacturers and shippers themselves. Please join me every other Thursday, 12 to 12 30 p.m., and exporting from Hawaii. Mahalo. Aloha. I'm Jane Sawyer with the Small Business Administration, and one of your hosts for Adventures in Small Business, a partnership with ThinkTech and with the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and the Veteran Business Outreach Center, all serving small businesses in Hawaii and telling you the story about their strategies, their ideas, their drive, and the way they help Hawaii succeed and be a bright light in small business. You'll find it here every Thursday at ThinkTech. Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you soon. Aloha mai kakou, and welcome back to Ukulele Songs of Hawaii. I'm your host, Walter Kawaii-Ai'a, and joining me today is my special guest from Kamaka Hawaii, Incorporated, Mr. Chris Kamaka. Thank you, Chris. Aloha. So before the break, we were just chatting about the family business, and you know, Chris's grandpa, the founder and originator of Kamaka Ukulele's, talked about Chris's dad, Sam Jr., and Uncle Fred, and they're pretty much retired now, and so Chris, along with some of his siblings, and Chris's two sons, Chris's brother, they run the show at Kamaka Ukulele's. I had some technical questions to ask Chris. I'm curious, so how many Ukulele's, I'm curious to find out production-wise, is there a target number of number of Ukulele's that you folks, you know, have a goal to set to produce monthly or quarterly? Yeah, we're pretty much set up at the shop to roughly about maybe 15 Ukulele's a day. 15 a day. Yeah, so there's different stations, so throughout each station, you know, each individual is entrusted in doing, you know, at least, well, up to 15 a day, and they're in their station, and yeah. Oh, that's a lot. 15 a day, well, that's fresh up. Well, it's a given take a few, but you know, we try and shoot for that, and it's been working out pretty good. I mean, you know, I'm very little, you know, aware, because my sons worked at Kamaka Ukulele's, but, you know, they did some work, you know, with someone else, and so, you know, I've been in the area, and I know, I mean, I'm sure the goal is every Ukulele that's being put together, the objective is, in the end, you don't have to destroy it because there's some flaw or there's some imperfection or something didn't go right. I mean that, I mean, at the cost of all of the material and the time and the labor to do this, there has to be precautions so that, you know, you don't have throwaways or whatever you call it. Yeah, you know, of course, things happen. Right. But ideally, each person knows what to look for as far as, you know, flowers in the wood or, you know, density of the wood or whatever. But, you know, it happens. And usually by the end of the production where I am, I check each one before, you know, we send them out. So, you know, usually by the time it gets to me, everything's pretty close. So I want to go back. So when Grandpa started the business, I'm assuming that the type of wood he used, it was all coir wood. Not necessarily. He used coir, you know, Philippine mahogany, monkey pod, whatever you could, especially like during the war, it was tough to get coir because stuff wasn't being shipped, you know, through Ireland. So a lot of experimenting on Grandpa's part with different types of wood. Yeah, monkey pod. He used a lot in the old days and looking mahogany. So over the years and even up to present time, I mean, primarily the choice of wood for Kamaka ukulele, the instruments is primarily coir. Yes, primarily coir. So I'm curious, and maybe the viewing audience might be curious, so do you folks have your own property with, you know, where you grow your own coir trees? Or how do you get the material of the wood? Fortunately, we don't, you know, have property. But, you know, we've been fortunate where we've been able to get wood from various millers and keep it pretty steady, you know, and have a good relationship, you know, with these guys and not getting easier. Not getting easier, I would imagine. Okay, I'm going to ask my engineer, we got eight images, and I promise him we're going to get through all eight. So if he could through, there we go. Okay, so we're looking, this is vintage. So that's the old shop there. And my grandfather with his leaning on the showcase there. And that's my uncle Fred holding the ukulele. Okay, that's one of his workers. One of the workers. Okay. Next picture there, Rob. Okay, so this is actually the current location. Exactly. I believe the address South Street, 550 South Street. What the name is changed. And well, if you look at the vehicles, most of those vehicles are nonexistent. So I'm going to guess, well, 1959, or this is probably in the early 60s somewhere. And it was a company name, Kamakah and Sons Enterprises. So this is the exact location. And I love looking at these whole pictures they tell, they tell a lot. And you can see by those automobiles. All right, Rob, our next picture. Oh, yeah, I love this one. So this was a special shot because this is not like, you know, hey, let's go take a picture. So tell us exactly because this looks like the very back of the building. This is our storage area where we air dry the wood. If you look closely, you can see there's sticks in between all of the pieces. That's so the wind can blow through to dry the wood. We don't put it in any kiln drying or anything. We do it all naturally like this slow process of drying. So it takes a while, it takes at least about a year, an inch a year. We usually say for drying. So some of those bigger ones back there have been there for quite some time. But the ones right behind me, they're more like eight quarter, two inch, a couple years they've been drying. So I mean, wow, I mean, the process of that, so the acquisition of the wood, the preparing of it, and then it has to sit there to, I guess, cure for lack of a better term. Yeah, when we get the wood, it's still green. It's still green. So it's still a lot of moisture in it. So we've got to let it sit there for some time before we actually cutting it out. Wow. Okay. Great smiles and looking at that. Looks like a lot of money sitting right there. That's a lot of money. Okay, Rob, our next picture there. All right. So this is kind of the nuts and bolts of where all of this work gets done. Maybe you can take our viewers through. Yeah, that's the back of the shop there. To the left is where the storage area is, and right there that first machine is our old bandsaw, which we still use. It's a really vintage one. My grandpa used to use that saw, and we still use it. Yeah. And then directly next to that is our new CNC machine. That's actually a computer numerical carving machine. So we do a lot of work on there as far as cutting and carving of the necks and doing a lot of the engraving for the tops and stuff. How long have you guys had that? Probably from the early 2000. Oh, I bet that saves a lot of time, man. It does, man. It's a lot more consistent. Because you can get the accuracy on that. There's still a lot of hands on, though, but that has been really a big plus. All above is just vacuums for them coming. So we're looking at the back of the shop and now into the middle, and I guess going further down. There's a little more area in the workshop, and then beyond that is the front office. I see. And how many on a daily basis, how many employees would be in the back there? We've got a total about 25. Really? 25 people now. Oh, that is amazing. All right. Curious to see our next picture. Oh, yeah. Okay. So we're going to segue. I mean, you would just automatically assume that if you make ukuleles, you obviously can play them, and you must have a talent of some sort. You know, good guys come in, like I come in, I want to buy an ukulele, never played an ukulele in my life. I'm going to expect that anybody that comes to the corner there come up with ukuleles and pick up an ukulele and demonstrate. So I know Chris, and besides his dad and his uncle, I mean, you're the only one that I know in that gang that actually played music, recorded music. Am I correct? Well, dad did with the Glee Club. The Glee Club. My uncle was with them also for a little while, but that kind of inspired me as far as... You got the jeans on. Carl singing. You got Carl singing. Well, you know, Chris and I go back, Chris, when I was playing music, we had a chance to play together, and Chris is one of my all-time favorite upright bass players, and so yeah. So what does Chris end up playing? He can play the ukulele, but he ends up playing, you know, the most difficult instrument, not just to play, but to carry, you know, to gigs and everything. How did that happen? Well, I guess, you know, I wasn't too good on the ukuleles. My friends threw me on the bass. You're from Chris, not from me. You threw me on the bass, but I really, you know, ukulele I play, it's really relaxing for me when I can, but the bass has really been a love that I've acquired, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I sad to say the ukulele is my instrument. I dabble a little bit on the guitar, but never the bass. And, you know, having been with Kaho on the Lake Trio and, you know, seeing Tommy play, I've actually seen Tommy trying to teach young guys are trying to play bass. Oh, man. I thought to myself, no frets? I'm not going to play an instrument that doesn't have frets. You play a killer ukulele, Walter. Okay, so I'm going to ask Rob, our time is running low on us. Do we have another picture there? Okay, so we got Chris on the far left. That's Uncle Fred, that's Fred Jr. That's Chris's dad, Sam, and that's Chris's brother Casey on the far end. Yeah, it must have been a special occasion. This was, I think, one of our anniversary get-together. Oh, I see. Okay, our next image there, Rob. Okay, so this makes it authentic. So this is the end of the production line, and you see Chris, he has a serious look on. He's not smiling, but he's giving it the final once over to see flaws and imperfection. And, you know, I look at that, I think. I'm confident. If he gives it that look, I'll buy that ukulele. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If Chris says it's good, it's good. One more image there. Okay, yeah, we got to go back to Uncle Fred and Chris's dad, Sam. I love looking at these guys. They smile. They look so happy. And I got to get me a shirt like that. You know, those, they don't have them anymore. They don't have them anymore. But we had a beige one, which we carried only at the shop. Yeah, I remember seeing that. I'm going to try to see if we can get it going again. Oh, yeah, this is excellent. Well, Chris, you know, our time, I got to scroll up here to my closing monologue if I can find it there. Well, where are we going? Anyway, Chris, I want to take this time to thank you for, you know, as a production manager, being away from Kamaoka, Hawaii, while taking time to be here and to share the family business and continuing to be the oldest and longest running family business 103 years and no signs of slowing down. No signs. Well, thank you again, Chris, for joining me here at Ukulele Songs of Hawaii as we stepped back in time and learned of this incredible history and legacy of Kamaoka Ukulele of Hawaii with Chris Kamaoka. I'm your host, Walter Kauai-Ai'a. Until next time, everybody, take care and aloha nō.