n 1993, armed with a cassette tape of songs he’d written and home-recorded, and hoping to record a proper album, Reichel—and his then-partner, now-husband Fred “Punahele” Krauss—made the rounds of several local record labels. Then an up-and-coming kumu hula (hula teacher), his fulltime job director of the Bailey House Museum on Maui, Reichel was turned away by every one of them.

“They literally laughed us out of their offices. Literally. Almost all of them,” he says.

Undaunted, the pair took another path, scanning the liner notes of their favorite Hawai‘i music albums in search of someone they might approach to record Reichel. A common name threading through albums they liked from Olomana, the Brothers Cazimero and the Makaha Sons of Ni‘ihau was recording engineer Jim Linkner. Friend and Makaha Son Louis “Moon” Kauakahi set up a lunch meeting between Reichel, Krauss and Linkner.

“And so Puna and I flew to Honolulu,” says Reichel. (“Puna” is short for “Punahele,” one of many names Reichel has given Krauss in song and chant over the years.) “We were so poor, we couldn’t rent a car to meet him. So we caught TheBus from the airport.”

Based mostly on how well they clicked talking story—“He didn’t even hear me sing,” says Reichel—Linkner agreed to record him. Reichel and Krauss then set out on the lengthy, considerable task of raising money for the recording session.

Recalls Reichel, “We raised money through our halau (hula troupe). We sold cookies and taro bread to fund part of it. Puna’s mom gave us a loan. And we put together just enough money to do about three weeks of recording.”

They recorded the album quickly—some of it in a recording studio, but most of it in the living room of a friend’s house—and, at Linkner’s suggestion, formed their own label to release it. The album’s title was taken from the first song Reichel wrote for it. The first song he’d ever written, before he’d even conceived of it ending up on an album or that he would have career as a musician. A song that, as with every song he’d penned for the album, was specifically about Krauss: “Kawaipunahele.”

“Nobody knew that Kawaipunahele was Puna,” says Reichel. “At the time, we were very, very cognizant of being genderless. I didn’t want to be known as ‘that gay Hawaiian singer.’ I just wanted to be known as a Hawaiian singer.”

Reichel shares this story in the home he and Krauss have shared for the past six years in the cool, rain-kissed, forested highlands of upper Pi‘iholo on Maui. They have been together for three decades and Reichel calls Krauss the inspiration for nearly all of the songs he’s written over his two-decade music career. Truth be told, Reichel’s breakthrough album, Kawaipunahele, might not have happened at all had Reichel and Krauss not briefly broken up 21 years ago.

“That was the catalyst. I was in that phase of my life after about seven or eight years [together] where I was kind of, like, ‘I love you. But I’m not in love with you,’” remembers Reichel, now 53, of his 31-year-old self. “And so we split up. Then after about a month, I changed my mind.”

Reichel lets out a throaty laugh.

“So I was, like, ‘Come back!’ And he was, like, ‘Uh-uh. No ways.’”

Away on a trip to Hawai‘i Island, post-breakup and heartbroken, words and music entered Reichel’s head. He’d written spoken chants before, but this was new: a song. He found a pen and wrote down the words as fast as he could on a Burger King napkin, the only paper available.  Writing the song made him feel better. But when Reichel returned to Maui and presented the song to Krauss, he found his ex unmoved.

So Reichel wrote more songs. Songs based on the breakup. Songs based on trying to get back together. Songs filled with regret. He showed them all to Krauss.

“We were still friends. And Puna said, ‘You really should think about recording these,’” says Reichel. “In my mind, I was thinking, ‘If there’s going to be a chance in this to work with you and just be around you then I’ll do it.’ I never told him that. But that was my way of staying connected.”

Released in 1994, Kawaipunahele proved an instant smash on Hawaiian music radio and a bestseller in Hawai‘i record stores, launching a long and successful music career Reichel had never seen coming. On the album’s release date, a year after their initial breakup, Reichel and Krauss moved back in together. Six albums, dozens of music awards, hundreds of worldwide concerts and one Grammy Award nomination later, they are still together, still inspiring each other.

There are no awards or artifacts in Reichel’s living room marking the myriad accomplishments of his careers in music or as a kumu hula. Like the rest of the woodsy home, the space is cozy, very much lived in—though neatly so—and filled with the varied interests of his and Krauss’s lives.

Music doesn’t occupy as large a portion of Reichel’s daily life as other pursuits do, and that’s the way he prefers it. He travels often, teaches hula and can get lost for hours in the art of Hawaiian knotting and net making. He shows me his latest works, in various stages of completion, spread throughout the living room.

“And this yard takes a lot of time, too,” he says, chuckling, while pointing out the living room window toward ‘ōhi‘a and koa. The native trees once made up much of the upper Pi‘iholo canopy before tall, dominating eucalyptus was planted by foresters. “I’m trying to reestablish a little place that was original to this place.”

Last fall, Reichel recorded and released his first album in 11 years, Kawaiokalena. Its subject matter is largely reflective of those interceding years, touching on his and Krauss’s move from their longtime home in Wailuku to Pi‘iholo, his travels, the loss of friends and mentors, and, of course, Krauss. Kawaiokalena is also, Reichel insists, his final music album.

“Everything comes to an end. And I like having that control,” says Reichel. “You should never say never. But if you think how long it was between albums, I don’t know that I can do another album when I’m 62 or 63.

“Maybe I could. Life may have changed by then. But in my mind this is a bookend. A really nice bookend to a charmed and very blessed career.”

Over three hours, as chilly Haleakalā winds blew through the rafters, forest birds chattered in the nearby eucalyptus forest and we devoured takeout laulau and garlic chicken Krauss had bought for lunch, Reichel reminisced about the stories and inspiration behind 12 songs from his music career that best echoed his life and still mean the most to him.