Lena Machado, best known as “Hawaii’s Songbird” and also inducted to the first Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1995 (Along with notable names such as Helen Desha Beamer, Alfred Apaka, Henri Berger, Sol K. Bright Sr., Josephe Kekuku, Charles E. King, Mary Pukui and Vicki I’i Rodrigues).
As a child, Lena sold lei’s at the Honolulu piers and aspired to one day become a singer like the women (Julia K. Chilton and Lizzie Alohikea) who greeted incoming passengers.
Despite loving to sing, her adoptive parents were not interested in their daughter singing, but she would go on to learn how to play the ukulele and take first place singing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” entered by her birth family.
Note: Lena’s birth parents are musicians Louise Makakoa Poepoe and Robert Wai’ale’ale. In Hawaii, the practice of hanai-ing (informally adopted) was a standard practice in Hawaii, so she was informally adopted by Mary Davis Pan and Loon Pan. So, she spoke English, Hawaiian and Chinese. But its important to note that she was unaware of her birth parents and her siblings until she was a teenager.
Her dream came true thanks to KGU radio manager Marion A. Mulroney discovering her while she was singing next door in a mango tree (at a property owned by her aunt). And she would eventually perform regularly on KGU (after what would supposed to be a ten-minute stint grew to an hour after listeners called in wanting to hear more of her) and became a soloist for Royal Hawaiian Band conductor Mekia Kealaka’i in 1925.
And she would go on to perform for five generations, including hosting a radio show on KGU during World War II.
Now the reason I wanted to listen to Lena Machado is because I love listening to music that was recorded in its earlier years (when recording was possible) and for Hawai’i, Lena is probably one of the few before the 1930’s that can be purchased easily.
And this is great to have access to early music from Hawai’i’s first female performer from Hawai’i to record for a large national recording company.
This album was released in 1962 and reissued decades later. For me, I was very happy to hear these golden Hawaiian songs that are 90-100 years old. With Lena’s album “Hawaiian Song Bird“, you get 17 tracks (on the digital version).
But the more I looked into Lena Machado’s history, the more I became saddened because despite her attaining her dreams of becoming a singer, being well-loved for her voice and her work with KGU and the Royal Hawaiian Band, unfortunately, during that time, there was major corruption and also extortion (from the assistant band manager) that troubled the singer became a victim of forgery which led to her dismissal from the Royal Hawaiian band which led her to leave Hawai’i for several years during the late ’30s.
By 1941, she would return back to Honolulu and was a guest soloist for the Royal Hawaiian Band which led to her supporters requesting for her to become the band’s regular soloist and even giving her a radio show on KGU. Making Lena Machado one of the America’s first woman to host her own radio show.
While there were unfortunate incidents that would happen to Lena in her ’60s and ’70s, Lena would pass away on January 1974.
But I look at the “Hawaiian Song Bird” album to be a celebration of her life and music.
You have catchy songs such as “Ei nei”, “E Ku’u Baby Hot Cha Cha” but also those late 1920’s songs such as her 1927 song “Na Lei O Hawaii”. You get classic recordings on this album, especially during her Brunswick Record years, but not so much of the 1937 Decca Records years (so you won’t find “Lei Kiele”, “Pua Mamane” on this album).
But you have songs such as “Ho’onanea” which was based on her experiences of her selling lei’s as a youngster and listening to the stories of the women. “Ku’u Wa Li’ili’i”” which was inspired from her experience turning 16 and wanting to be a lady but not living up to her own expectations. And “Kamalani O Keaukaha” which she wrote after years being away from home in Keaukaha as she was busy with the Hawai’i Island tour.
What we have are classic songs and for me, great to hear songs written in hula ku’i form (single melody and chord structure are repeated over and over) but Lena was taking that style and doing something different (and modern at the time) than what other contemporaries were doing musically.
And she will be remembered for her soprano and female falsetto (ha’i), which she was part of a group at the time of women in Hawai’i who sung in this style. But I would like people searching for classic songs of Hawai’i to please give the music of Lena Kaulumau Wai‘ale‘ale Machado a try!
