Six years ago, Rick Carroll began to write a conventional biography of beloved Island musician Israel Kamakawiwo'ole — words on a page with perhaps a few photos. "It's what I know how to do," the former Islander said by phone from his North Carolina home.

But then, said the author of "Iz: Voice of the People" (Bess Press, oversize hardback, $39.95), "the spirit of Israel kind of dictated a new direction."

Go bigger, bolder, broader, whispered the spirit of the man whose untimely death on June 26, 1997, threw the Islands into mourning.

The late singer's last name, loosely translated, means bold eye, or fearless eye, Carroll said. "And he was — fearless. He never knew when to stop. He was gregarious. He wanted people around him at all times. He needed to be surrounded by music. He loved to talk and write. I was astounded by how he could condense complex thoughts into three words. It was poetry, haiku. He was full of jazz, full of sass. He lived every moment of his brief life fully."

Kamakawiwo'ole is also, with all due respect to Don Ho and others, one of the biggest things to come out of the Hawai'i entertainment industry.

Nine years after his death, said producer Jon de Mello of Mountain Apple records, his CD "Over the Rainbow/Facing Future" is in the top 100 in 17 countries. De Mello can walk into a record store anywhere — England, France, Japan — and hum Iz's signature "oooh-oooh, oooh-oooh, ooo-ooo-ooo" from "Over the Rainbow" and be directed to the CD without ever saying the artist's name. Iz songs continue to be featured in commercials and movie scores. And Mountain Apple gets 50 e-mails a day from people who want to know more about Iz, who want to tell how his music has calmed their children, helped their families deal with pressure in wartime, inspired interest in Hawaiian issues.

"Israel and I, in our wildest dreams, never ... We knew we were doing something that was cool and fun and neat and clean, but we had no idea it was gonna be like this. It's getting bigger and bigger. It's not slowing down," said de Mello, who now spends much of his work life on licensing deals related to the Kamakawiwo'ole legacy.

"He's global," said Carroll.

So Iz's book couldn't be just another biography.

The book's story — as with all Iz-related stories — brings on chicken skin.

Not long after Carroll, then an O'ahu-based journalist, started the first draft of the book, he was diagnosed with cancer. "There are parts of the book I don't remember writing because I was on chemotherapy. It kept me going. Israel's music made people forget their cares, and he gave me strength in that way, too, because writing the book distracted me from my situation," said Carroll, now in remission.

He was going to self-publish the book because even Bess Press, who had published his previous books, had turned the idea down.

But as he wrote, Carroll began to realize that he was telling more than one man's life story; he needed to place the man in context in order to show how Iz unwittingly became the voice of a people. So the book is rife with detours — segments that explore everything from territorial-era kitsch to the Save Kaho'olawe movement, factors that framed Kamakawiwo'ole's life.

"He was born in 1959, the same year Hawai'i became a state, and he grew up in a fabricated Hawai'i that was created for tourism. He and his whole generation had no idea who they were or what they should do about it," Carroll said.

It's the story of how Kamakawiwo'ole began life as a spoiled-rotten, worse-than-kolohe kid and passed through many years during which his prodigious talents were overshadowed by a lack of focus, drug-abuse and philandering.

But it's also the story of a guy who refused to perform the "Hawaiian Wedding Song" because it wasn't Hawaiian, who had the guts to needle Gov. John Waihee from the Waikiki Shell stage about when the Hawaiian people were going to get their land back, whose voice became the very sound of the sovereignty movement — "E ala e, ala e, ala e."

He became the man who, as his final years were spooling out, called out to a generation in disarray, delivering messages they would only accept from one with his street cred and his stature: "Love each oddah. Malama. Take Care. Stop the dope, brah. It's only facade, brah. It's a thin curtain. It's only temporary. Us guys is forever. Our ancestors, our ancestors before that. ..."

Publisher Buddy Bess got interested again when he saw the manuscript. He could envision a different sort of book — a biography-cum-coffee-table-book, very visual, very visceral, like Iz himself.

Pictures were the challenge. "They said it couldn't be done. The pictures were all lost, scattered. Iz was camera-shy, he didn't like pictures," Bess recalled. But the word went out and soon images were trickling in, particularly after Iz's widow, the usually media-shy Marlene Ku'upua Kamakawiwo'ole, got involved. Carroll met her through de Mello's intervention, and she consented to an interview and to write a simple, heartfelt foreword for the book.

"We'd been approached before by people who wanted to do his biography, and we've been leery," said De Mello, speaking of Mountain Apple and the Kamakawiwo'ole family. "But then Bess Press came along, and Marlene and I both thought, this is it, it's time. It's a local company. Rick Carroll is a good writer. This is the right one. So we went to the archive and found everything we possibly could on Israel's life and handed it over."

Carroll also had extensive aid from Iz's uncle, the late Moe Keale, conducting his last interview with Keale three days before the popular entertainer's death. Other key informants were radio announcer Jacqueline "Skylark" Rossetti and Iz's "haole mom," Betty Stickney.

For many, the book is a dream come true.

For Carroll, of course, who has been living with it the longest: "If we're lucky, we get to touch somebody like this once in our lifetime. I am just lucky."

For Bess, it's the Mainland crossover book he's been trying to find for 25 years. Barnes & Noble will sell it nationwide. Borders is going deep on the West Coast. Seventeen thousand of the first printing of 25,000 copies have been sold; Bess took a deep breath recently and ordered 20,000 more.

And for De Mello, it's a tribute to a friend he misses every day: "I know Israel can see this."

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.