1979
Banner Year
The year 1979 was a banner year for Leon & Malia. That year, they recorded three major album projects — Boy With Goldfish, Mokulana and Heartland; each one distinctly different from the others, demonstrating the breadth and depth of Leon & Malia’s range of skills as composers and performers. 1979 was the culmination of many years of hard work.
Boy With Goldfish
In July of 1979 Leon & Malia made their historic recording, Boy With Goldfish with the London Symphony Orchestra at Watford Town Hall, England. Not only was Boy With Goldfish the first recording of Hawaii artists performing with an orchestra of that stature, it was also the very first recording of an original Hawaii composition; and it was one of the first recordings in the world to utilize the newly invented digital recording technology.
Boy With Goldfish received accolades from around the music world for its artistic merits and was broadcast directly from digital tapes over classical FM radio stations in America, Europe, Australia and Asia. In broadcasts and anthologies, Boy With Goldfish was often featured on albums with other new digital recordings by luminary composers like John Williams and Morton Gould.
Boy With Goldfish also caught the attention of the tech and audiophile communities for its breakthroughs in capturing “the widest dynamic range ever recorded” and for pushing the envelope in the development of a digital playback system (now known as compact discs) for consumers. No one else from Hawaii has come close to what Leon & Malia achieved with the Boy With Goldfish recording.
Mokulana
In 1979 Leon & Malia wrote and produced another ground-breaking recording project, a children’s storybook album called Mokulana.
Written and recorded during the summer of that year (between trips to London, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City for the Boy With Goldfish project, and gigs in Honolulu, Mokulana became the
biggest selling albums in Hawaii that year.
Embraced by tens of thousands of Hawaii’s children, the storybook album became an instant favorite and set the tone for Leon & Malia’s continuing prominence in the genre of children’s music. Leon & Malia’s songs, including those from the original Mokulana are being enjoyed by the third and fourth generations of children all over the world.
Heartland
Heartland was another 1979 concept album, with songs reflecting some of the impressions and insights gained from ten years of touring and performing across America as well as spanning matters of the heart. The project was begun in 1978 in Los Angeles with the recording of three songs, including Mother and Child, just a few months prior to the birth of Leon & Malia’s son, Koa. The final cuts were completed about a year later in Honolulu.
Contributing their artistry to the album were: legendary vibraphonist, Arthur Lyman, bassist Archie Grant, Jr., guitarist Henry Kapono Kaʻaihue, slack key master Keola Beamer, consummate conga drummer Earl (Black Eagle) Tillman, as well as many outstanding studio musicians from LA and Hawaii. Musical arrangements were by Lee Holdridge, Mark Snow, Leon Siu, and Charles Blaker.
Over the years, the song, Island Music from this album has become one of Leon & Malia’s most loved and enduring compositions.
