SLACK-KEY PLAYERS BRINGING A BIT OF HAWAII TO TACOMA
PAUL DE BARROS
* 01/21/99
The Seattle Times
(Copyright 1999)
Last year, when Cyril Pahinui gave a workshop on Hawaiian
slack-key guitar in Nashville, guitar guru Chet Atkins himself came
up and asked what he was doing.
" `Pops,' I said," Cyril recalled by phone from his home in
Waimanolo, Hawaii, " `that's an open-C tuning.' "
"An open C tuning?" replied Atkins. "What's that?"
Now there isn't too much Chet Atkins doesn't know about
guitars, so when he gets stumped, it's worth noticing.
Hawaiians like Cyril - and his late father, the great Gabby
Pahinui - have been fiddling with guitar tunings for over a hundred
years now, developing personal styles that only recently have come
to the attention of the rest of the world. The Hawaiian name for
their music is Ki ho'alu, or slack-key, which refers to how the
players loosen, or slacken, the strings of the instrument.
If you've never heard slack-key, you should check it out. It's
* a sweet, cleanly played folk music, featuring beautiful voices and
quietly complex acoustic guitar sounds, a great antidote to the
commercial hotel music relentlessly marketed as "Hawaiian."
Pahinui and two other slack-key stars - George Kahumoku Jr.,
and the Reverend Dennis Kamakahi - will give an object lesson in
just how beautiful their music is, at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Tacoma's
Rialto Theater. A discussion session at 6:30 p.m precedes the show.
Pahinui, 48, has been playing slack-key since he started
jamming with his father and friends at the age of 7.
"I miss all that today," confessed Pahinui. "My father would
say to one of us, `OK, brudda, take a solo!' It took some courage,
but you played what you could play, and it was all right."
There was a time when slack-key players guarded their tunings
like family recipes. Today, they share more readily. Still, there
is a limit to how much they'll tell you.
"I can show you the tunings," says Cyril, notorious for his
sophisticated, jazz-like chords, "but I won't tell you how to play."
Can't other players just study his hands?
"They don't have no chance to study," he answers cannily,
"because they got to keep their mind on what they're playing, or I
throw them off!"
Pahinui records for Dancing Cat, a slack-key specialty label
started in 1994 by New Age pianist George Winston. The company has
sold more than 300,000 albums, and moved slack-key out of small
clubs and into concert halls. This tour hits 18 U.S. cities, from
Tacoma to New York.
In spite of the fact that he has played Carnegie Hall, Pahinui
still has a nine-to-five job, like most folk musicians. By day, he
is a diesel-fuel truck driver for the city of Honolulu. He made his
first slack-key album in 1966; his debut album for Dancing Cat, "6 &
12 String Slack Key," won a Hoku award, a sort of Hawaiian Grammy.
His 1998 recording, "Night Moon," showcases his upbeat, aggressive
style, particularly on 12-string guitar, which he can make sound
like a whole band. His warm, hoarse baritone can be rousing on
upbeat numbers, or high, gentle and sentimental on ballads.
For tomorrow's show, Pahinui and fellow Dancing Cat artists
Kahumoku and Kamakahi each play a solo set, then join for a jam.
George sings pastoral songs in a high, nostalgic tenor. Kamakahi
took over the slack-key spot held by Gabby Pahinui in a group called
The Sons of Hawaii and has become one of the music's most important
composers. Tacoma hula dancers Healani Kekela and Kanoelani Gliza
will interpret some of the songs.
