Happy Birthday, Lehua Kalima!

Once known only as one-third of the Hawaiian vocal supergroup Na Leo, in the last few years the lovely and talented Lehua Kalima has broken out as a solo artist. Composer of some of my favorite contemporary Hawaiian lyrics (“Flying With Angels,” “Rest Of Your Life,” and “Saving Forever” come to mind – all Na Hoku Hanohano award winners for “Song Of The Year”), in November 2011 Kalima released Rising In Love – her first solo effort featuring an additional eight new original compositions. Her story is well chronicled on her artist page at the Mountain Apple Company website.  If you haven’t heard Lehua’s work as a solo artist, an excellent introduction to her latest and greatest is her appearance on the HiSessions series, a raw, “MTV Unplugged”-like approach to presenting Hawai’i’s artists. One of my favorite songs from Lehua’s latest release is “Delicate” – performed in the segment of HiSessions featured here. But there is more where that came from. To hear more of Lehua Kalima’s HiSessions performance, visit the HiSessions YouTube page.  Happy birthday, Lehua! And mahalo for the gift of you beautiful voice and your beautiful thoughts set to music.