Hawaiian Guitar Music

You can trace the root of Hawaiian guitar music to one thing: the realization that the guitar didn't have to be tuned to the standard EADGBE notes. This opened up the instruments, and the possibilities were huge, including open-chord tunings (such as DADGAD), so when you strummed the strings they made a full chord, which could be changed by just using a single finger up and down the fretboard. Previously, the Mexican cowboys who'd brought the instrument to the islands had only played in standard tuning, and this new invention would change the entire course of the guitar in Hawaii, spawning two main styles: the Hawaiian, or slide guitar, and the gentle fingerpicked ki ho'alu, or slack-key (a name that refers to tuning down the strings), which came first.

The discovery of the slide guitar is credited to Joseph Kekuku, who in 1900 was a schoolboy on Oahu. Playing around, he slid a piece of metal up and down the strings and realized it made a good sound. From there others began experimenting, not only playing chords but also single notes with the slide as well as adapting old Hawaiian melodies and playing the guitar flat across the lap or putting it on a stand rather than holding it in the usual way. A decade and a half later the slide style had become widespread in the islands, so much that it was featured in the Territory of Hawaii's Pavilion at the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Expo, with string bands playing the music. Hawaiian guitar was unlike anything most Americans had heard before, and it created a sensation. Record companies rushed to record the groups, and there was a welter of copycats from the mainland. Records of Hawaiian guitar soon were sound outselling everything else in the U.S., influencing jazz, ragtime and pop styles.

Hawaiian guitar had its virtuosos, such a Benny Nawahi and Sol Ho'opii. Nawahi was the showman, playing not only with his hands but also with his feet and mixing his sound with jazz. He released several hit discs before he decided to turn to the ukulele (on which he was also outstanding) and became a major vaudeville performer. Ho'opii took the Hawaiian guitar on an even longer journey, and was perhaps the most influential guitarist of his generation, with the best technical command of the instrument. He not only encompassed jazz but also introduced the Hawaiian guitar to country music and created the tuning that brought about the pedal-steel guitar. In 1934 he was among the first to electrify the instrument, but not long after he found religion and stopped playing music. By the time Hawaii became an American tourist destination, popular interest in the Hawaiian guitar had declined and it became part of the soundtrack of luaus, although its legacy in other musical forms is strong.

Slack-key guitar remains a strictly acoustic style. For many years it was just something the islanders played for themselves, unknown to the rest of the world. Families developed their own tunings, which were carefully guarded secrets. It was a tradition allowed to develop in peace, like a true folk style, and it was largely by accident that the wider world came to know of it. American guitar legend Ry Cooder happened to buy an LP by Gabby Pahinui, the dean of slack-key players, and was so taken by the music that he travelled to Hawaii to record with him and his family in the early 1970s.

Still, it was a long time before most people would really hear slack-key. That was due to New Age pianist George Winston. While visiting Hawaii, Winston fell in love with the slack-key sound so he started the Dancing Cat label to make recordings available in the U.S. mainland rather than just the islands. Since then he's released material not only by long-established stars like Ray Kane and Sonny Chillingworth but he's also encouraged younger performers such as Led Kaapana and Cyril Pahinui, Gabby's son, and many others.

Slack-key guitar has developed over the years, as younger guitarists have brought other influences to bear, from blues to soul to folk, and incorporated them in their music. Yet the lulling core—with thumb picking the pass and fingers playing the melody and variations in gentle fashion—remains ineffably Hawaiian. Chris Nickson