Welcome To Hat Creek Records

Hat Creek Records is committed to quality music. We connect with singer-song writers around the world to get the music to you. We help you get the best music available. We have strong musical knowledge and can match your individual needs to the music. At Hat Creek Records, we pride ourselves on giving expert advice in a pressure free environment. It’s about world music with local flavour. Hat Creek Records is a resource for the music and arts community in Alberta and beyond. You can find CDs and vinyl here from all over the world at Hat Creek Records.

Hat Creek Records receives support from the Silk Road Arts Council of Hat Creek, Alberta.

Mary Chapin Carpenter – THE CALLING

Mary Chapin Carpenter’s The Calling is her first release for Rounder Records. The Calling is unique among a body of work that has earned Mary Chapin Carpenter 5 Grammy Awards and helped her sell 13 million records in the first 20 years of her career. While her writing continues to be deeply personal, this new collection of songs also unequivocally addresses issues both public and political: from the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina to religious zealotry to the trial-by-radio of the Dixie Chicks. Thematically, the album is about faith, vocation, commitment, responsibility, and the ways these are wielded for various—often, competing—agendas.

Mary Chapin Carpenter’s approach is very intimate on this CD. The Calling is Carpenter’s second co-production with pianist Matt Rollings. On The Calling, as in previous recordings, Carpenter confidently crosses boundaries of genre, incorporating elements of folk and rock as well as country into the mix. Carpenter returned to Nashville last year to record The Calling and assembled many of the same players from the Between Here and Gone sessions, along with veteran engineer Chuck Ainlay, the long-standing right-hand man to Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits. The Calling is available from Rounder Records.

Quartette – DOWN AT THE FAIR

The ladies of Quartette are one of Canada’s most successful Quartettes. They all have successful solo careers as well as with Quartette. They are singers and entertainers. They are songwriters as well and perform to thousands of people across Canada as both their group Quartette and as individual artistss. Quartette has recorded albums for several years and have now have released their 6th CD Down At The Fair. What makes Quartette so distinctive is their grasp of a wide variety of musical styles-including folk, roots, country and bluegrass and the clear beauty of their four different voices . They harmonize in a wondrous blend together. They are aware of their gifts. Their voices are so strikingly different that when people hear their nuances and sing harmony, it’s a sound like no other.

Cyril Pahinui – HE’EIA

Cyril Pahinui has just released his third solo CD on Dancing Cat Records. Cyril Pahinui was born in 1950 and grew up in the small town of Waimanalo at the foot of the Ko’olau mountains on Oahu’s windward coast. His father, Gabby Pahinui, was one of Hawaii’s best known and most influential slack key guitarists. The Pahinui home and backyard provided food, shelter, rehearsal space, concert hall, and playground for many of Hawaii’s foremost traditional musicians. The jams sessions went on all day – sometimes, all week.

Cyril got started along the slack key path around the age of seven. His father offered encouragement, but mostly Cyril learned, in the traditional way, by observing. “I used to watch my dad, Atta Isaacs, Sonny Chillingworth, and my brothers when they would jam,” he says. “They were so awesome you didn’t want to miss anything. You didn’t even want to blink your eyes!”

A seasoned veteran at age twelve, Cyril began to play at concert performances, and by fifteen he was sitting in with his father’s group. As Beatlemania swept Hawaii in the 1960s, Cyril and his older brother Bla started a rock band, after which, Cyril joined Sam and the Samlins, and continued to sit in with his father at shows.

In 1968, Cyril made his first record with The Sunday Manoa, a loose association of like-minded young people intent on helping perpetuate the classic Hawaiian sound. Two years away in the army interrupted Cyril’s performing, though it gave him plenty of time to woodshed and to hear other styles of guitar. When he returned to Hawaii, his father was at the peak of his popularity. Cyril played on all five of Gabby’s groundbreaking albums on Panini, providing many of the distinctive, improvised introductions for the songs. He also joined Palani Vaughan’s project chronicling King David Kalakaua’s music and times.

In 1975, Cyril formed The Sandwich Isle Band, one of the first young bands to feature steel guitar and revive the jazz-inflected songs of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1979 he joined the Peter Moon Band, which also included brother Martin. Throughout the 1980s, he continued to expand his musical horizons, especially in the C major tuning he inherited from Atta Isaacs.

In 1988, after many promptings, Cyril recorded an album of traditional and contemporary songs, which won Na Hoku Hanohano Awards for Best Contemporary Hawaiian Album and Best Male Vocalist from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts. In 1992 he joined brothers Bla and Martin for a long-awaited Pahinui Brothers album. Cyril also began recording for Dancing Cat as a solo performer, and won the 1994 Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Instrumental Album of the Year with his debut release on Dancing Cat, 6 & 12 STRING SLACK KEY. In 1999, Dancing Cat released the first duet album for Bob & Cyril, FOUR HANDS SWEET & HOT, which won the Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2000.

Sean & Robi – S & R

After touring Hawaii and the as a duo, Sean Na`auao and Robi Kahakalau announce the realease of their first Mountain Apple CD S & R. Sean & Robi’s first duet album combines the individual talents of two of Hawaii’s all time favorite performers! S & R is a fresh new album that features traditional and contemporary Hawaiian tunes along with Roberta Flack’s original “Where is the Love.” When you listen to this CD, you’ll hear how Sean and Robi combine their beloved and distinctive vocal styles to create the ultimate duet album of the year! S & R is available through Mountain Apple Company.

Maunalua – KULEANA

Maunalua embraces their role to preserve and perpetuate this tradition with their second release entitled, Kuleana. During the past two years, Maunalua has been gathering songs that represent their strong belief in family, friendship, trust and culture. Co-produced with Dave Tucciarone, Kuleana, captures the spirit of Maunalua. This release features a beautiful song entitled “Pa Konane”, written and composed by Nanihau’upu and Bobby Moderow Jr. Legendary singer Leinaala Haili lends her musical vocals for “Pua Tuberose”. Kuleana further offers traditional favorites like “Nani Kaua’i/Aloha Ka Manini” and “Hawaiian Soul”, to slack key instrumentals, “E Liliu E (C Slack)” and “Hanohano Hanalei/Nani Hanalei”. Kuleana is an exciting follow-up to their first album, Maunalua, a Na Hoku Hanohano Award winner in 2001 for Best Hawaiian Album of the Year.

Maunalua has been playing together for over eight years and have been fortunate and honored to perform at many events throughout the Hawaiian Islands, U.S. mainland, Japan and Pacific Basin to preserve and to perpetuate the Hawaiian tradition. It is Maunalua’s kuleana to build upon our kupuna’s foundation and share their style of Hawaiian Music.

Hans Theessink – SLOW TRAIN

Austrian based Hans Theessink is a Dutch Country blues guitarist who has built an international reputation as a leading practitioner of American roots & blues. On “Slow Train” Hans Theessink has expanded his blues roots to include Gospel & World music. In fact it is worth noting that had not both Ry Cooder & Paul Simon been here before with high profile World music albums, “Slow Train” would probably pick up even more accolades than it is already destined to receive.

Hans Theessink’s yearning vocal style is one that has been honed in over 30 years of learning his craft and he brings an unhurried style of emotive phrasing to bear on some poignant lyrics that deal uncompromisingly with contemporary events. His sublime guitar playing is so subtle that you strain to hear every slight change in emphasis in tone while his sultry slide runs beautifully underpin some warm gospel accompaniment on ‘Run On For A Long Time’.

Together with a fine band & three gospel singers nick-named “Ramadu”, “Blessings” & “Vusa”, Hans tackles songs about 9/11 and Iraq as on “God Created The World” and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe as on “Thula Mama-Oh Mother Don’t You Weep”, without once pandering to sloganising. The biting lyrics on Slow Train are written as if in the first person bringing an extra emphasis to the lyrics. There’s a deeper blending of gospel blues on “Cry Cry Cry” another album highlight complete with sumptuous slide guitar and deft use of handclaps. There’s also a JJ Cale feel to the wistful “Let Go”, while “Love You Baby’ is a delightful joyous dobro outing. Such is the confidence of this project that the spiritual “Old Man Trouble” never once hints at cliché in spite of its lyrics that include the line. Be sure to hop on board when Slow Train comes by.

The Tahitian Choir – RAPA ITI

A thousand miles southeast of Tahiti lies the last piece of land before the South Pole. The island of Rapa Iti . It is home to approximately 320 people of Polynesian descent. Their church music has been influenced by Christian hymns but it remains very much an ancient polyphonic music that is sung in quarter-tones. This ancient music is kept very much alive by the whole population on Rapa Iti. The music on this CD is sung by the island’s 126 voice choir. Prior to this recording, the only one found by Pascal Nabet-meyer, the ethno-musicologist who did this recording, was a wax cylinder from 1906 found in the Bishop Museum in Hawaii. This form of Polynesian music is so unique it is almost impossible to describe. There are haunting similarities to an ancient unrhymical forms of Hebrew Cantillation which date back to the Temple in Jerusalem. And there is another early singing style called heterophony found in the Western Isles of Scotland. This is truly world music.

Hat Creek Records

Most likely you are here because someone told you about Hat Creek Records or you have seen one of our buttons or links on another website. You might have even heard about us at the Golden Lotus Cafe in Hat Creek, Alberta. We are solely referral based and so there is no advertising. In fact, most visitors seek us and choose Hat Creek Records because of our reputation in Hat Creek and beyond. Hat Creek Records receives generous support from the Silk Road Arts Council of Hat Creek, Alberta.