Slack key guitar is the sound of Hawaiian fellowship, protest, and love for native land. Most scholars trace the origin of the indigenous fingerstyle technique—named for the fact that the strings are tuned “slack” so that chords can be played open, without fretting—to the 1830s, when Mexican cowboys brought guitars to Hawaiʻi, hired by King Kamehameha III to teach Hawaiian cowboys how to properly herd their cattle. When those Mexicans headed back home years later, some of them left their guitars behind. However, they probably didn’t teach the Hawaiians how to play; instead, the Hawaiians experimented with the instrument, re-tuning it to suit an established repertoire of traditional Hawaiian song known as mele. The resulting style of play evolved into slack key—a distinctly Hawaiian sound with complex patterns of rhythm, bass, and a leading melody all handled by one player on an acoustic guitar. It would become synonymous with the identity of the islands.
Despite existing for over a century prior, slack key wouldn’t find its way onto recordings until 1946, decades after other styles of Hawaiian music already made the leap across the Pacific Ocean to the contiguous United States. Even then, its commercial appeal remained limited. While hula and steel guitar were weaving themselves into the fabric of American popular music, slack key stuck close to home, propagating the same way it has ever since its humble beginnings on the ranch: as an oral tradition, through a strict relationship between a master and a student. Many players developed their own tunings to suit their performance needs or styles of play, which would often become defining hallmarks of each teacher-student lineage.
The particulars of slack key would remain fiercely guarded secrets, with fingering techniques, tunings, and the history, mythology, and meaning of songs sometimes being known only to a single family. Gabby Pahinui, slack key’s most influential player and standard-bearer, famously refused to instruct his own sons, insisting they learn only by careful observation and develop their own unique voices. “If they want to watch what I do, fine. If they don’t, fine,” he said when asked about his philosophy on teaching.
It wasn’t until the Second Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s—a period of renewed interest in aspects of Hawaiian culture suppressed by nearly 80 years of American colonization—that slack key guitar would finally have its moment in the mainstream. Young native Hawaiians sought to learn the rapidly disappearing Hawaiian language and hear stories of the way natives used to live; the songs of slack key, frozen in time by their very nature, gained new value as educational tools. Performing slack key became an act of protest and an assertion of what it means to be Hawaiian, and the keepers of this knowledge assumed new roles as elder statesmen. On the nine releases selected below, a story emerges of how a little-known indigenous folk music transformed into an empowering voice for the revitalization of an endangered culture.
Various Artists: The History of Slack Key Guitar (released 1995, recordings from 1946-1950)
The first 20 slack key recordings were released on the long-defunct 49th State, Bell, and Aloha labels, collected on this compilation. Most tracks were initially released as B-sides to more commercially marketable songs in hula and big band styles, and sales were low. Because slack key wasn’t popular outside of backyard jams and family gatherings, careers weren’t expected to blossom. The majority of musicians on these records would only appear here, with one notable exception: a young Philip “Gabby” Pahinui, whose recording of the classic mele “Hi’ilawe” was the first-ever recording of slack key guitar. Influence from contemporary popular music is plain to hear all over these recordings, with Gabby himself being particularly enamored with the big band swing rhythms of Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman. That influence underscores an important fact: While these are the first slack key recordings, they are not necessarily representative of where the genre began.
Alice Namakelua: Auntie Alice Kuʻuleialohapoina‘ole Namakelua (1974)
Alice Namakelua is one of the most celebrated female Hawaiian musicians in history, but still doesn’t quite get the credit she deserves for her work in preserving slack key guitar. Her first and only album of slack key was released in 1974, when she was 82 years old. But she had been playing the instrument since childhood, learning from students of the original Hawaiian cowboy players. Namakelua was not far removed from a time before Hawaii’s annexation: She was born a year before the monarchy was overthrown, spoke Hawaiian natively, and regularly performed songs for the deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani as a teenager. Though she didn’t record until decades after developing her simple and unadorned style, it is the oldest ever documented, and demonstrates many of the basic rhythms the generation of players after her would build upon. From the 1940s and throughout the Second Hawaiian Renaissance, Namakelua taught slack key guitar as a public service, keeping the art alive even when recordings and instructional materials—much less willing instructors—were scarce.
Leonard Kwan: Slack Key (1960)
As a teenager in the late ’40s, Leonard Kwan played mele and big band music alongside Hawaiian music greats like Benjamin Rogers, Genoa Keawe, and Andy Cummings on the live circuit in downtown Honolulu, which carried an enduring influence on his style. His first album as a bandleader, Slack Key—also known as the “Red Album” to differentiate it from an identically titled later release—was the first full-length album of pure slack key instrumentals. It became a foundational document for aspiring guitarists and enshrined Kwan in the canon. The five tunings he employed became some of the most commonly used in the genre, and his original composition “ʻOpihi Moemoe” remains an oft-played standard.
Gabby Pahinui: Pure Gabby (released 1978, recorded 1961)
Following Gabby Pahinui’s successful debut album with the Sons of Hawaii, the perception was beginning to shift on Hawaiian music. Natives of the island, estranged from most things traditionally Hawaiian due to decades of cultural suppression, were beginning to see the value in hearing the songs of old—all they needed was a boost in fidelity, presenting the music with the slick modern production of rock’n’roll. Still, labels remained unconvinced that albums featuring slack key as the centerpiece rather than accompaniment would sell. As a result, Pure Gabby, recorded in 1961, was shelved and forgotten for 17 years. In the time the project remained in stasis, Pahinui soured on it; his playing had improved significantly, and most of the tracks were recorded in rushed takes between the ringing of a church bell. Despite his objections, the album was lauded as a classic when it was released in the thick of the Second Hawaiian Renaissance, solidifying Pahinui’s status as a central figure in the movement and finally showing the world his mastery of the art.
Sonny Chillingworth: Waimea Cowboy (1964)
Sonny Chillingworth leaned fully into the Latin roots of slack key guitar. Folding Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian songs into his repertoire, he expanded the toolbox of techniques with his use of clave patterns and speed picking. Contrary to the conventional perception of slack key as a relaxing style of music, Chillingworth had several songs in his arsenal that required great technical skill, such as the frenetic whirlwind “Whee Ha!” or his signature song “Waimea Cowboy,” adapted from a classic hula tune by crooner Bill Aliʻiloa Lincoln. Chillingworth took the heritage of slack key seriously, having inherited some of his knowledge from his uncle Harry Purdy, Jr., a cowboy from the famous Parker Ranch—one of the oldest ranches on Hawaiʻi, where the tradition likely began.
Atta Isaacs: Atta (1971)
Leland “Atta” Isaacs is mostly known for being one of Gabby Pahinui’s closest collaborators, but he was a fierce player in his own right. When the two guitarists met, they were co-workers in a road crew for the city of Honolulu, doing hard labor. Through his association with Pahinui, Isaacs became an in-demand player for concerts and session work, but there was a problem: most slack tunings were oriented around playing in one particular musical key, and Isaacs was becoming frustrated with the tedious process of re-tuning his guitar whenever he needed to play in a different one. To eliminate this issue, he devised a tuning, based on a C major chord, that would allow him to easily shift between multiple keys. This ability to freely modulate gave Isaacs unparalleled adaptability, heavily influencing any would-be players that value the ability to improvise—including Gabby's son Cyril Pahinui. On Atta, Isaacs showcases the utility of his custom tuning by swapping between two keys on most songs.
Raymond Kane: Nanakuli’s Raymond Kane (1975)
The son of a boating family, Raymond Kane started learning guitar at the age of 9, securing lessons by offering fish to a local guitarist who was tired of having the same meal every day. After a stint in the military, he started attending jam sessions on the beach whenever he was able, inspired to return to the guitar after hearing Gabby Pahinui’s early recordings. At one such session, he was scouted by Tradewinds label owner Margaret Williams. Following a 1961 duo album with Leonard Kwan, he released his first solo album, Nanakuli's Raymond Kane, in 1974, which demonstrated his unique style. Kane was the first musician to perform a solo slack key concert for the public in 1973, and from then on took students and became a public ambassador for the genre.
Keola Beamer: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar in the Real Old Style (1972)
Keola Beamer came from a family of musicians: His great-grandmother composed Hawaiian standards, his grandparents were composers and teachers, and his mother was an authority on hula. Despite that, he had trouble finding a slack key teacher. No one in his family had knowledge of the art, and he was spurned by the only potential teacher he knew to ask. Eventually, his mother introduced him to Alice Namakelua, who agreed to teach him on the condition that he would take on students of his own once he was skilled enough to do so. Beamer took his charge seriously. Not only did he record a lifetime’s worth of slack key albums starting from his 1972 debut, but he also published the very first instructional text the following year. He believed that a change in ideology from slack key’s tightly guarded roots was necessary to keep the music alive. “The irony was that by way of holding the secrets so close,” he once noted, “this art form was actually dying.”
The Pineapple Sugar Hawaiian Band: The Pineapple Sugar Hawaiian Band Vol. 1 (1978)
In 1970, years after hearing slack key guitar on the radio and falling in love as a child, the Japanese guitarist Yuki “Alani” Yamauchi took an extended trip to Hawaiʻi, where he met several of the style’s greatest players. Raymond Kane took a liking to Yamauchi after meeting him at a jam session in Gabby Pahinui’s backyard, christening him with the Hawaiian name “Alani” and accepting him as a student. Yamauchi’s good fortune was not lost on him, having had the opportunity to sit in with the last generation of musicians connected to the older flavors of slack key, just as they were warming up to the idea of playing with outsiders. When he returned to Japan, he first applied what he learned by forming a band with a group of like-minded friends that he bonded with over a love of island music. The Pineapple Sugar Hawaiian Band’s debut album would be Japan’s first interpretation of the lesser-known Hawaiian style, and one of the first slack key albums recorded with a full five-piece band. Yamauchi continued to pay the knowledge forward, writing books, translating liner notes for most Japanese issues of slack key records, and founding a school of Hawaiian music back home in Tokyo.
