Cord International Information

Cord International was founded by Michael and Maryann Michalski Cord with a dream. That dream was to bring back to life the classic lost recordings of Hawai'i. Many recordings were originally released on big thick scratchy 78-rpm shellac discs that were played on a Victrola going back to the 1920s. Think about what that listening experience must have been like with all the hisses, pops, and once-arounds, compared to the luxury of today's listening experience. 78-rpms, 45-rpms, and LPs were vanishing along with the history. We wanted to know: Who were these artist? What was their story? What was their history? What was the history of the songs? We wanted to bring a time capsule buried long ago back to life. Hana Ola translates as work of life or to grant life. With a team of amazing partners and producers - all leading experts in the fields of Hawaiian music, dance, language, history, and storytelling- and with the magic of the digital age and extensive computer audio restoration we managed to do just that. The classic sound of vintage, contemporary, hapa-haole, traditional hula & chant and so much more REAL Hawaiian music has been preserved for an ever expanding family of loyal music fans and educators from across the globe. All of us at Cord International Media Group have been passionately researching, archiving, preserving, restoring, and releasing these lost or previously out of print classic recordings for decades now, collecting amazing stories and rare photographs to share with you along the way. So with each disc you also get an education in the history of the music with extensive historical liner notes. The goal is to make REAL Hawaiian music from these legendary artists and their stories available so that people from all walks of life, all around the globe can enjoy & appreciate the spirit & sound of aloha. Over the years, both the Hawaiian Academy of Recording Arts (Hawaii's Grammy Awards) and the Hawaii Music Awards (Hawaii's American Music Awards) has recognized our work with many prestigious ...