Acclaimed island singer-songwriter Roland Cazimero is being remembered by fellow Hawaiian musicians as an inspirational artist whose creativity forever altered the local musical landscape.
A multi-Hoku Award-winning recording artist and one-half of the Brothers Cazimero, the man many knew as “Bozo” or “Boze” died Sunday night at Straub Medical Center in Honolulu after several years of declining health following an onstage collapse on Maui. He was 66.
Kenneth Makuakane, a Hilo native and multiple Hoku award winner, said seeing Cazimero play a 12-string guitar was what inspired him to play one.
Big Islander Rupert Tripp Jr., a member of the guitar trio Kohala and a Hoku award-winning solo artist, remembered sitting in on “the numerous jams on the ‘P Street’ home where he grew up.”
“Boze was one of a kind,” he said. “He was one of the best singer-songwriters out there. Not everyone understood him. In fact, some didn’t like him, but he inspired me more than any local musician in Hawaii.”
Cazimero first made history as a member of the Sunday Manoa with his older brother, Robert, and Peter Moon in the early 1970s. He and Robert founded the Brothers Cazimero in 1975.
Robert was the emcee and played bass. Roland played 12-string guitar and was known for his skill at interjecting quick, witty one-liners into his brother’s narration.
The Brothers Cazimero won 10 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards between 1978 and 2007. Roland Cazimero also received Hoku awards for his work as a solo artist, for his work as a member of the musical group Hokule‘a and as a member of the all-star quartet that recorded “Broken Promise” in 1991.
The Brothers Cazimero headlined the Monarch Room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel from 1982 to 1994. Their May Day concerts at the Waikiki Shell were annual big events in local entertainment from 1978 through 2007.
The Brothers Cazimero Christmas concerts were also annual entertainment highlights for many years.
The duo was inducted in the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 2006 and received the Hawai’i Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.
Survivors include his wife, Lauwa‘e Ah Mau Cazimero; children Hawai‘iki Cazimero, John Devin Kumau C. McWilliams, Jonah Cazimero, Jordan Malama Cazimero-Chinen and Justin Pono Cazimero-Chinen; brothers Rodney and Robert; and twin sister Kanoe “Tootsie” Cazimero.
