History of the
Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festivals
The history of the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festivals had its early beginnings in 1982. It was grounded in aloha and for the love of the music and man that was synonymous with the music. It was an opportunity to pay tribute to the contributions of a man who contributed so much to the music of Hawaii, and at the same time, continue his legacy and help to perpetuate and preserve a unique Hawaiian acoustic guitar art form known as “Ki-ho’alu”. Joining us in this effort have been dozens of individuals and corporate citizens in the community who have shared our vision and commitment to Hawaii’s culture and arts.
In 1980 Charles Phillip Pahinui, also known as Gabby ‘Pops’ Pahinui, past away. A giant in his own time and legendary to many around the world through his music, he was one of the few that led the way for what is now referred to as the “Hawaiian Renaissance” that had its roots in 1960’s. Through his music and style, Gabby was able to inspire and motivate young Hawaiians to be proud of their cultural heritage. Further, through sincerity and passion for his music, he showed that Hawaii’s traditional music, and in particular, Ki-ho’alu, was an art form that was special and unique to Hawaii and worthy of being played in front of a large audience and quality venues and recorded for an even larger audience. And, an art from that began nearly 160 years ago on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii and was worthy of devoting much of his time to master. Till this day, he is recognized as the “modern day father” of the slack key guitar and its greatest master. In March of 2001, a bust of Gabby was dedicated and placed on a pedestal at the entrance of the Waikiki Shell which will forever immortalize this Hawaiian cultural icon. Further, he has also been honored with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the annual Na Hoku Hano Hano Music Awards (Hawaii’s Grammy Award) and in February of 2002 was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame with a tribute concert in his honor at the historic Hawaii Theater in Honolulu.
In tribute to him, the festival was started as a way to honor his efforts and accomplishments in 1982 in his hometown of Waimanalo on the island of Oahu. Beyond our wildest dreams that first festival drew several thousand people and gave us the impetus to continue producing the festival on an annual basis on the island of Oahu in Honolulu. After the first 10 years of the festival, we realize that there was a groundswell of interest and support for the festival statewide as well as overseas. Thus, today, the festival is now produced not only in Honolulu but also on the islands of Kauai, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii. Just about the same time when we began expanding the festival to the outer islands, there was interest from the continental United States as well. Hence, we began taking the festival to such cities as Seattle, WA., Portland, OR., and numerous cities in California such as Nevada City, Sacramento, Davis, Napa, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, and San Diego. To date, the festival has now been done in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Chicago, Paris, France, Germany, and the UK. In 1994 the festival represented the United States in Tokyo, Japan at the “American Music Festival”. What began as a tribute to a simple man from Waimanalo in 1982 has now taken on a larger identity. Further, over the last 7 years, the festival has also become somewhat of an economic generator for the State of Hawaii as more and more visitors to the islands are scheduling their vacations around one of the festivals (we have found that some of the visitors attend all of them and rotate the islands according to what festival they want to attend in any given year).
Coupled with these developments over the last 23 years, has been an explosion of recordings of individuals that have devoted their lives to the performance, preservation, and perpetuation of this indigenous art form. In conjunction with these developments has also been the distribution of these recordings by Dancing Cat Records of Santa Cruz, CA worldwide through BMG Music. Thus, there has been a convergence of sorts with the festivals and recordings both complementing each other and reinforcing our commitment to the perpetuation of this unique and special art form. An art form made popular by the man we honor………Gabby ‘Pops’ Pahinui.
2007 marks the 25th anniversary of the festival in Honolulu on the island of Oahu and the 15th anniversary for all of the neighbor island festivals (Maui, Kauai, Hawaii) . We continue to be focus and enthusiastic about the music and where we have been and where we are headed. The music is now part of genre known as “World Music” and someday we hope that through the efforts of all of the musicians that perform it, the producers, record companies, the many festivals produced throughout Hawaii and overseas and our loyal Hawaii based corporate sponsors as well as those on the mainland such as Taylor Guitars and Dancing Cat Productions that Ki-ho’alu will be recognized throughout the world as truly a great guitar tradition. Since 2005, a category for Hawaiian Music was created by NARAS or better known as the “Grammy Awards” and Slack Key Guitar has won the coveted award for 3 years straight over some of the best artists from Hawaii.
Over the last 25 years, we have established a loyal fan base of 60,000 people throughout the State of Hawaii. This figure is based on record sales, radio play, festival attendance, and data that we have collected over the years. Demographically, the age-group that we cater to and reach is between the ages of 30 -75. Those people who are more cultural based in their musical taste and enthusiastic about the music. Worldwide our fan base is nearly 3 million people. On an annual basis, approximately 1,500 (and growing) visitors plan their vacations around one of the festivals and this translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars for our economy. Each of the festivals in Hawaii draw approximately 3,000 – 5,000 people. Further to augment and enhance interest in the art form, acoustic guitar workshops on the art of playing Slack Key Guitar are being held throughout the Hawaiian Islands and various part of the mainland USA.
In early 2002, to draw more attention to the art form and generate interest nationally, we have setup a non-profit entity (The Ki-ho’alu Foundation, Inc.) that will allow us to solicit art grants nationally from other foundations and government institutions and be a vehicle for us to offer scholarships to interested young people to learn slack key guitar, produce videos, books, audio cds and continue the festivals statewide and perhaps overseas. To those goals we are committed for the next 20 years. We have yet to realize our potential for the genre. The future is very bright for those looking to get involved in the music.
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