This is a continuation of that early journey to times past, when folks like Harry Owens, R. Alex Anderson, Herb Ohta Sr. and Neil McKay scribbled tunes about romantic Island nights under the stars and sun-kissed days on the beach.

Singer Shimomoto won the first Hapa Haole Music Festival, and he offers nostalgic vocals again, composing a few originals along the way.

The track that typifies his mana'o is a medley of "Dancing Under the Stars/I'll Weave a Lei for You," which sounds perfect for a Monarch Room show, the ideal setting for this kind of music.

More stroll-down-memory- lane highlights abound: "Honolulu (I Fell in Love With You)," "Somewhere in Hawai'i," "Waikoloa," "place" songs that pinpoint an Island memory; plus Shimomoto's "My Heart Belongs to You" (he wrote lyrics, John Starr Alexander composed music), a love ballad that transcends our shores.

Shimomoto has splendid instrumental support, with Alexander at the dominant piano backup; but the roster of musicians reads like a who's who — Wendell Ching, Dan Del Negro, Weldon Kekauoha, Jeff Peterson included. The session sounds like a command performance in a chic club.

This best-of CD compiles hits and faves from four albums, "Down in the Valley," "Shores of Waiehu," "Back to the Valley" and "Ekolu Music." There are 19 tracks, many featured on a companion DVD, "To the World From Ekolu," and there are memories galore jammed on both releases.

"Honestly" and "Just Like That" are newly recorded, from the DVD version, but the sentimental journey taps many familiar Ekolu gems, like: "Mistah Offisah," "Stuck on You," "Just One Night" and a couple of title tunes from their fame-launching earlier albums.

Considering some original tunes were recorded in the vintage 78-rpm format (remember those easily breakable 10-inch discs?) of another generation, this reissue sounds properly "historic," without the scratchiness and hisses of old recordings — that's the magic of digital technology. Lincoln, of course, had the Cadillac of falsetto voices — strong, sleek and long, able to soar to high, and then higher, registers. Think Auntie Genoa, but a gent, who sang while hula maidens danced. The earliest track is "Ku'u Lei Liliha" (1938), the most recent is "Moku O Keawe" (1975). In between, there are such delicious morsels as "My Yellow Ginger Lei," "Na Ka Pueo," "Pualeialoha."

Harry B. Soria Jr., protector of "Territorial Music," is the masterful producer of this, and other, classic compilations of music of yesteryear.

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