25th Anniversary Commemoration
September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance
Dear Friends,
Following is a bit of ‘back story’ regarding the recordings of ‘We Remember Them’ and 'The House I Live In’.
From Howard Shapiro:
Shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, I wrote the song ‘We Remember Them’. This song honors the first responders that gave their lives rescuing others. It was written and recorded to support the families that lost loved ones on that tragic day.
It is our sincere desire that these songs and videos help support and promote the work of organizations sponsoring events for the ‘Day of Remembrance'. We are honored to be a part of this historic occasion.
Our Expertise
Kumanu Music in partnership with Peck Tunes LLC, promotes environmental & social issues through music & video content.
We have created, individually and together, music and videos that support the goals of organizations such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Hunger Project, The Earth Day Network, Recycle Hawai`i and Performing and Fine Artists for World Peace.
We Remember Them & The House I Live In
From Gregg Perry:
Just days after the 9/11 attacks I was contacted by the owner of the Hilo Arts Theatre, Pat Rocco. His partner’s brother, Cortez Ghee (see insert on right) had been killed in the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. Pat told me, “I woke up in the middle of the night and said to myself, I’ve got to do something positive about this.” He formulated an idea that eventually led to us producing the song ‘The House I Live In’. The song lyrics were written by Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allan) with music by Earl Robinson. It was originally recorded in 1945 by Frank Sinatra as a short music film inspiring tolerance and equality. My idea was to produce a kind of ‘We Are The World’ style production and invite several of Hawaii’s top recording artists to participate.
Through the generous donations of time and creative energy, a large group of music professionals and others pulled off the incredible feat of re-writing, arranging, orchestrating, recording, mixing, mastering, and distributing the project. The track was released on the CD 'With Aloha From Hawaii’ in October of 2001. Just a mere three weeks after the tragedy.
When we started the 'We Remember Them' project the subject came up regarding my previously released version of 'The House I Live In'. Howard and I decided to include that audio track with this project. It then came up that we should create a video to accompany the track. Hence the music video of 'The House I Live In’ was created. We then decided to package the two audio and video productions together for the upcoming 25th anniversary commemoration.
Howard and I are offering the music tracks of both 'We Remember Them' and
‘The House I Live In’ for free. The song tracks can be downloaded from this website, free of charge, from the Home page and the Listen page. We have also produced music videos of both songs. The videos are available to stream from this website at the Watch page and from our YouTube channel. We invite you to share the music and videos with whomever you feel might find them of interest.
Click here for photos of ’The House I Live In' recording session.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to our music and to view our videos. We are grateful for your continued support of our creative works.
Take care,
Howard Shapiro & Gregg Perry
