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Hawaiian music lovers relished its renaissance in the early 1970s with the release of the hit album by the Sons of Hawaii on the Hula record label. It festured Eddie Kamae, Gabby Pahinui, David “Feet” Rogers, Moe Keale, and Joe Marshall. Not long later, Gabby, joined by his four songs along with Sonny Chillingswrth and “Atta” Isaacs created an emotional combustion with the “Rabbit Island Music Festival” album. Waimanalo earned a star on the map, Bell Street became the home of ki ho‘alu or slack key guitar and Gabby “Pops” Pahinui became synonymous with a guitar style born in Hawaii. Like a stone cast upon still waters, slack key guitar’s ripple effect reached distant shores and people begged for more. From Nippon to Nashville, ki ho‘alu evoked a myriad of musical renditions within the genre of Hawaiian music.
In 1982 on a sunny Hawaiian day in Waimanalo, trade winds carried ocean melodies to mix with the strains of six and twelve string guitars. An appreciative crowd unknowingly became the first to experience the beginning of a twenty year musical odyssey. The best in ki ho‘alu shared an astounding collection of traditional Hawaiian music, paying tribute to cultural music icon, Gabby “Pops” Pahinui. Leland “Atta” Isaacs, Sonny Chillingworth, The Peter Moon Band, Melveen Leed, The Pahinui Brothers (Bla, Cyril and Martin), George Kuo, and many others performed for the man they remembered and loved.
Over the last two decades, Ka-Hoku Productions has saved in perpetuity recordings of those memorable concerts throughout Hawaii and elsewhere and presented, on its 20th Anniversary 2002, the first in a series of the very best in ki ho‘alu nostalgia. Slack key master Raymond Kane, Gabby’s sons Martin, Cyril, and Bla, Ledward Kaapana, Dennis Kamakahi, Pekelo Cosma, George Kahumoku, Jr., Gary Haleamau, Michael Kaawa, George Kuo, Brother Noland, Dennis Pavao appear from the old school, mentors to a new generation such as Makana, Ikaika Brown, and Bobby Moderow of the group Maunalua. For those who have enjoyed any one of those concerts, the natural response after listening to Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festivals Volume One can only be “I was there!” Enjoy Hawaii’s heritage.
- Keaumiki Akui
Radio Personality
Hawaiian Music Historian
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