Kui Lee (1932-1966)

Kuiokalani Lee known as “Kui Lee” was one of the biggest rebels of his time, he made a great impact as one of Hawaii’s greatest singers, and songwriters looked at lyrics and the tunes he wrote that had a large impact on Hawaiian history. Kui Lee attended Kamehameha and then later graduated from Roosevelt. He had a really ripped body, a handsome Hawaiian-Chinese-Caucasian man and he could do lots of stuff. Fire knife dancing, Singing, Dancing. 

He liked turtle necks, 

He never really liked doctors 

The Rebel Hawaiian Paving the Road

Looking back it can be easy to say that he was doing what everyone would hope would be the best stuff he could make, but there were plenty of people that didn’t agree with him singing in English and playing in a style of his own that was almost lounge-like. He really wanted to do things his way and it wasn’t because of it only being a choice, but for the reason of expressing what he wanted to in a way he wanted to, because he had this sense of music that just had to come out and he needed it somewhere to go. The performance was likely where he would feel free with his songs. Later on this guy seemed a bit off the wall and strange would have people loving his stuff, composers looked at his stuff like the blueprint of music of Honolulu too. 

Kui Lee had a vision of Modern Hawaiian Music

Kui Lee was really good friends with Bobby Darrin who owned a record label

Queen’s Surf (Spencecliff Restaurants)

Kui Lee would bring his family to the Beach Center and there would be a bunch of them that would meet at the rock wall and jump in the water. Then they would have so many of them the kitchen staff would make a mini-buffet for the kids where it was like the queen’s surf buffet with smaller trays, smaller serving utensils, smaller portions, smaller everything. 

People would sing Kui Lee’s music that he had copyrighted and tracked and all that, but he enjoyed sharing music by letting people sing his songs. The Makaha Sons, Elvis Presley, Henry Kapono, and Don Ho would spread their songs and he thanks lots of his inspiration being not only Hawaii but also New York. 

Born

Kui Lee was born in the East Orient “Shanghai” 

Kui Lee for the Next Entertainers with Don Ho

The next generation of entertainers would hear about his music from Don Ho on the national level with his platform that went and spoke to top people in Hawaii and to people all over the Mainland. Don Ho would sing many of Kui Lee’s songs and credit him as the songwriter with famous songs like “I'll remember you”. 

Kui Lee had four children

He was the first Hawaiian to go on the “Ed Sullivan Show” and the host had a hard time pronouncing Kui’s name, so he at that time decided that he would name his son something he could pronounce. So his son would be named “Kimo”.

Kui Lee would have the mother of his child stay in New Jersey where her sister lived and his son was born there while he had a gig up in New York on the East Coast. The brown skin made it hard for people to talk to his son because they would think that Hawaiian was Mexican, Spanish, Puerto Rican, but when finding out people would nickname people back then Coconut or Pineapple. Growing up there on the mainland a family will oftentimes raise the child as if they were still in Hawaii, but the accent still gets ingrained, so when coming to Hawaii the accent has layers to it when a person learns pigeon. It is kind of a way to trace where a person grew up where the pigeon has a bit of an east coast accent and comes off as trying too hard, but it's just part of growing up in two places. In Hawaii you are too East Coast New Jersey for their liking and in the mainland you're too Hawaii Local for them too, so you are outcast if you have a unique upbringing instead of being embraced in most cases.

When his son was 3-years old he wrote a song for him called “The Days of My Youth” where he talks about flying like a bird on the wings of the wind, playing in the sun with a joy deep within, and laughing with sweet foods. This was talking about a father looking at his son enjoying being small with the innocents of childhood and it captured that time he was still around

Kui Lee Singing until the Very End

“Kui Lee was one of the main drives of music for me when he did the concert knowing he was going to die, knowing he was sick, knowing he couldn’t sing as good he would share whatever he could. It was a driving force for me to get into music.” -Kapono