Henry Kapono

Henry Kapono Kaʻaihue — known professionally as Henry Kapono — is a Native Hawaiian singer-songwriter and guitarist born September 21, 1948, and raised in Kapahulu, a neighborhood near Waikīkī on Oʻahu. He began singing in a church choir as a child and later attended Punahou School on a baseball scholarship, graduating in 1967, before attending the University of Hawaiʻi on a football scholarship; an injury there redirected him toward music full time. In the late 1960s he toured Asia with a local rock band and, after being stranded by a promoter, spent an extended period performing for U.S. troops in Vietnam and Thailand.

In 1973 Kapono partnered with Cecilio Rodriguez to form the duo Cecilio & Kapono (C&K), which became one of the first Hawaiʻi-based groups to sign a national recording contract, with Columbia Records. The duo released studio albums including the self-titled "Cecilio & Kapono" (1974), "Elua" (1975), and "Night Music" (1977), helping popularize a contemporary folk-rock sound rooted in island life. C&K recorded together intermittently in later decades and were jointly honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts in 2009.

Kapono launched a solo career with "Kapono – Stand in the Light" (1981) and went on to release a large solo catalog, including the 1997 album and title track "Home in the Islands." In 1991 he co-wrote and recorded the protest song "Broken Promise," about mismanagement of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, with fellow Hawaiian artists Roland Cazimero, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, and Cyril Pahinui; it won Nā Hōkū Hanohano Song of the Year and Single of the Year in 1992. For more than three decades he has hosted "Dukes on Sunday," a weekly live music gathering at Duke's Waikīkī. He has also appeared on screen, including in "Waterworld," authored the children's book "A Beautiful Hawaiian Day" (2000), and in 2018 founded the Henry Kapono Foundation, a nonprofit supporting Hawaiʻi's music community.