Moorea Lagon « Kaina Music » – Kaina Boys, 1984

🎸🌺🏝️🎶🇵🇫 With two guitars and a ukulele, Auguste Richmond, Manu Aroquiame and Petero Bellais set up the Kaina Boys and, as their name suggests, keep the Polynesian musical tradition alive. In 1984, they recorded Moorea Lagon, an anthology of local songs that drew as much on Pacific rhythms as on foreign contributions, particularly American. As well as the traditional Musu Musu Atu (from Samoa) and Tamure Moorea Lagon, there was a cover of Yes Sir That’s My Baby and hits by Eddie Lund’s Te Manu Pukarua. The group quickly became a local success, and their music livened up the « bringues » of the 80s in Tahiti, as witnessed by this cassette, a vestige of an old personal Polynesian period, unfortunately by proxy.