What kind of music do you expect to hear in Hawai'i? I'd never thought about it before I lived there. 

My exposure to the islands before then was Hawaii Five-O and Magnum, P.I. I knew there was Hawaiian music but I didn't know an names other than Don Ho.

It wasn't long before I found that I enjoyed the sounds of Cecilio and Kapono and Brothers Cazimero. C&K was a kind of Hawaiian pop and the Brothers had more of a classical style that the locals were into. This kind of music was played everywhere - especially at tourist traps: the International Market, Ala Moana mall, the lobbies of any hotel that you walked into.

I found that I particularly enjoyed music in the Hawaiian language. Brudda Iz (Israel Kamakawiwoʻole) is probably the best known of the native language singers. I had a couple of his albums and liked "E ala e" the best. The video for the title track is here. There was also his spin on the "Gilligan's Island" theme on the album. It was quite humorous. His rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is probably the best known of his work by mainlanders.

The jazz scene was a little different there. There was all kinds of fusions going on. Hiroshima had a song on their album "Go" named "Hawaiian Electric"  that so popular that the Hawaiian Electric utility used it in one of their commercials.

Jawaiian music, a Jamaican-Hawaiian fusion, was very big at the time. I don't particularly like reggae, so I seldom listened to it.

There were your standard radio stations like KPOI 98 Rock and  KQMQ Q93 (top 40). (A quick internet search shows that KPOI changed formats and frequencies and KQMQ changed formats. It's been almost 30 years since I was there.) There was also also KDEO-FM 102.7 - Radio Free Hawaii. You never knew what you'd hear there. If you are in the St Louis area, RFH was kind of like KDHX but without themed shows. There was just a jumble of every kind of music.

They went off the air about 20 years ago. Sadly, there is not much to be found about this station. This is one guy's story of finding a cassette with some of their programming and sharing it with his kids.

I started this article because today I thought of an artist that I have heard maybe twice on the radio since I came back stateside: Basia. 

Basia nee Barbara Trzetrzelewska is a Polish singer/songwriter that hit the scene hard in Hawaii. Her songs were very jazzy. I honestly have no idea why she never had any hits in the States. 

Any time that I now hear Time and Tide, Cruising for Bruising or Promises, I think about all the good times I had cruising through Waikiki on the weekends.