HAWAII: George Naope's Troupe / Leilehua / 49th State 135 / 1951

George Lanakilakeikiahialiʻi Naope was born in Honolulu and raised in Hilo, HI. He was a kumu hula (master teacher), Hawaiian chanter, and Hawaiian cultural advocate. Teaching hula dancing for over sixty years, Naope was a scholar of ancient hula, which was developed and danced before 1893. With his precocious skills in hula, music, singing, and chanting, he spent some of his teenage years touring the United States with singer, and bandleader, Ray Kinney. He founded the George Naope Hula School in the late 1940s, and in 1964, the Merrie Monarch Festival, a week-long celebration of traditional Hawaiian arts, music, and dance, featuring a three-day hula competition. Naope made a number of recordings of both songs and chants for the 49th State label in the early 1950s, and later in the decade for Tropical Records, a joint venture by Naope and singer-musician Johnny Almeida. Naope was the recipient of the 2006 National Endowment of the Arts Lifetime Honors Award. [George Naope: February 25, 1928 – October 26, 2009] [Leilehua, George Naope's Troupe, 49th State 135, recorded 1951, matrix HRC-135-B] The flip side of this disk is Sophisticated Hula:    • HAWAII: George Naope & June Leite with Joe...   Hawaiian Playlist:    • Hawaiian   Thanks, as always, to T. Malcolm Rockwell: Hawaiian & Hawaiian Guitar Records 1891-1960 © 2007