Speaker 1: Ephemeral is production of I Heeart three D audio for
Speaker 1: full exposure listen was that phones the first electric guitar
Speaker 1: didn't sound anything like this. It would have been more
Speaker 1: like this is what's called steel guitar today. It might
Speaker 1: be most associated with the twang and country music, But
Speaker 1: once upon a time, long before the grand old opry
Speaker 1: and electric amplification, this modern day stringed instrument was born
Speaker 1: on the Pacific Islands of Hawaii. I was very interested
Speaker 1: in their sound. I loved their sound, but I only
Speaker 1: knew of their sound and context of country music for
Speaker 1: the most part. MY name's John Troutman. I'm the curator
Speaker 1: of music at the National Museum of American History. John's
Speaker 1: intrust in the steel guitar began some twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I was a graduate student at the time in Texas
Speaker 1: writing a book on American Indian dance. I was also
Speaker 1: working as a musician in Austin and had recently bought
Speaker 1: a steel guitar that I found in the attic of
Speaker 1: the music shop in Tucson, Arizona. This is a pedal
Speaker 1: steel guitar. I ended up taking out to gigs throughout Austin.
Speaker 1: When I was playing in different rock bands, learning on
Speaker 1: the fly the fundamentals of the instrument now the time
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen nineties, there was very little information
Speaker 1: about the steel guitar save for a few liner notes
Speaker 1: on some Hawaiian music compilations, and it was really at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the internet era, so there weren't a
Speaker 1: whole lot of opportunities for studying the history online. For
Speaker 1: his book Kika Kila, How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed
Speaker 1: the Sound of Modern Music, Seck John worked with Hawaiian scholars, archivists,
Speaker 1: the families of musical legends, and some of the greatest
Speaker 1: steel players working today, including the one you're listening to now.
Speaker 1: So there's a ninth card right right there at that spot.
Speaker 1: That's a big difference. Yeah. My name is Allen Acaca.
Speaker 1: I've been the teacher for more than thirty years, playing
Speaker 1: music ever since I was in elementary school. Taught myself
Speaker 1: out of play the kle along with the upright bass,
Speaker 1: the guitar, and my number one love, the Hawaiian steel guitar.
Speaker 1: As early as the third century, Polynesian explorers were paddling
Speaker 1: through the Pacific by canoe two thousand miles north around
Speaker 1: the twenty one parallel, they came upon the Volcanic Archipelago
Speaker 1: we know now as the Hawaiian Islands, the most isolated
Speaker 1: land mass on Earth, cut off from the rest of
Speaker 1: the world Cannakamaole. The native Hawaiians developed their own systems
Speaker 1: of worship, governance, agriculture, food, and music. The Hawaiian musical
Speaker 1: traditions that had really saturated the islands were really rooted
Speaker 1: in chants and rhythms provided by a variety of percussion instruments.
Speaker 1: Pre colonial instruments like the Ipu gord drum are still
Speaker 1: in use today. But global imperialism would find its way
Speaker 1: to Hawaii eventually, beginning in seventeen seventy eight with Captain Cook, who,
Speaker 1: upon landing in typical fashion for a European explorer, renamed
Speaker 1: the chain the Sandwich Islands. By the fifties and eighteen sixties,
Speaker 1: the islands had become recognized as one of the most
Speaker 1: significant cultural and mercantile cross roads in the globe. Ships
Speaker 1: for visiting the islands from all over the world en
Speaker 1: route from or to East Asia, South America, Canada in
Speaker 1: the United States. It was a really rich and extraordinary
Speaker 1: place in that time, and of course today is one
Speaker 1: of the most diverse populations, not only in the United
Speaker 1: States but in the world. It's been that way for
Speaker 1: a very very long time. One trade good entering Hawaiian
Speaker 1: harbors was the Spanish or classical guitar. Eighteen thirties and
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, not only the guitar, but pianos and
Speaker 1: banjos and violence and other instruments are brought to the
Speaker 1: islands from ports far away. Native Hawaiians see the guitar
Speaker 1: with greater and greater frequency by the eighteen fifties, and
Speaker 1: it's really by the next ten or fifteen years or
Speaker 1: so where we begin to find accounts of Native Hawaiians
Speaker 1: adopting the guitar to suit their own musical purposes. The
Speaker 1: wine music was always influenced by what was going on
Speaker 1: in the mainland, from the missionaries bringing over their new England.
Speaker 1: Him those two, Henry Berger bringing music from Germany. He
Speaker 1: was from outside of Berlin, then the Hawaiian royalty studying
Speaker 1: under him. By the eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies, photographers
Speaker 1: were taking photographs of Hawaiian musical troops dominated by women,
Speaker 1: as the instrumentalists playing percussion instruments indigenous to the Islands,
Speaker 1: playing guitars in some cases ban Joe's. Like any musicians
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world, they were going to play instruments
Speaker 1: that were the most exciting to them and that spoke
Speaker 1: most directly to their own interests. An important difference to them, well,
Speaker 1: the rest of the world was still using strings wound
Speaker 1: from catgut. Islanders were earlier opters of strings made from steel.
Speaker 1: Hawaiians are actually responsible for two major innovations on this
Speaker 1: centuries old instrument, the steel guitar, and it's now more
Speaker 1: popular cousin, the slack key guitar. You can hear the
Speaker 1: steel guitar in the airport, but more often than that,
Speaker 1: when you hear a guitar, you hear a slack key guitar.
Speaker 1: The slack key is a special way of tuning the
Speaker 1: Hawaiian guitar. It's essentially a style of playing based upon
Speaker 1: specific tunings that were developed in the Islands that speak
Speaker 1: to specific genres of Hawaiian music making. We find the
Speaker 1: first instances of descriptions of this style going back to
Speaker 1: the eighties and eight nineties. It involves people beginning to
Speaker 1: in some cases de tune their instruments to slack the
Speaker 1: strings to an open chord formation. It's a voice that
Speaker 1: is quite striking and beautiful on its own, even when
Speaker 1: you say police strung the strings without even fretting the instrument.
Speaker 1: But Hawaiians began developing a method of playing on top
Speaker 1: of open tunings of the guitar that would enable them
Speaker 1: to create these really lush, vibrant and poetic styles of
Speaker 1: guitar playing. Holy The steel guitar is also an instrument
Speaker 1: that requires an open tuning, so a lot of the
Speaker 1: same open tunings were developed for both the slack key
Speaker 1: style and the steel guitar. But the steel guitar also
Speaker 1: requires some physical modifications to the instrument and the use
Speaker 1: of a steel bar to be played on top of
Speaker 1: the strings as well. In the case of the steel
Speaker 1: guitar number one, you play it horizontally normally on your
Speaker 1: lap unless it has aids or stand. Then the nut
Speaker 1: is raised so that the strings are not so close
Speaker 1: to the fret board. It has to be that way
Speaker 1: because we use a metal bar to slide across the strings.
Speaker 1: If we use a standard guitar will bump into the
Speaker 1: raised threats with the raised nut I could just glide.
Speaker 1: I'm not structed. In all parts of the world we
Speaker 1: find instances of people developing stringed instruments where they're running
Speaker 1: a bead or some sort of tool on top of
Speaker 1: the string to generate sound. But what seems to be
Speaker 1: quite unique about the steel guitar in Hawaii is the
Speaker 1: fact that Native Hawaiians were the first people to really
Speaker 1: figure out a logic to it the development of the
Speaker 1: first steel bar, which is where the guitar got its name.
Speaker 1: The steel guitar derives from the Kamehameha School for Boys
Speaker 1: on Olwaukee, and there are many different virgin stories of
Speaker 1: the steel guitar. I kind of investigated all of them
Speaker 1: when I was working on this book, but the one
Speaker 1: that seemed most compelling was the story associated with a
Speaker 1: teenager named Joseph Kuku, who was a student for a
Speaker 1: while at the Kama School for Boys in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties and early eighteen nineties. There's one family story
Speaker 1: Kikuku and his cousin samnin Noah. We're sitting on a
Speaker 1: stoop in layer Oahu. Joseph was leaning over the guitar,
Speaker 1: his cousin Sam was playing violin. He had one of
Speaker 1: those steel combs in his shirt pocket. At some point
Speaker 1: the comb literally fell out and pounced on the strings,
Speaker 1: and then he got the idea of, oh, well, maybe
Speaker 1: we can actually run this on top of a string.
Speaker 1: It worked, it made sound, and it made interesting sounds.
Speaker 1: Because his strings were steel. Those three elements, the steel
Speaker 1: bar on steel strung guitars set to open tunings had
Speaker 1: not really manifested themselves elsewhere in the world. He's not
Speaker 1: only able to develop a logic. He walks into the
Speaker 1: command of School for Boys machine shop and builds the bar.
Speaker 1: He also makes fingerpicks of the machine shop. These are
Speaker 1: all new innovations at the time, and he develops a
Speaker 1: translatable style of playing such that by or so he
Speaker 1: begins sharing this technique with his classmates. They learn it
Speaker 1: on their guitars, then they take it back to their
Speaker 1: own islands that are scattered throughout the archipelago, and that's
Speaker 1: where the instrument really begins. While mechanical and stylistic improvements
Speaker 1: have been made along the way. When Alan is beginning
Speaker 1: with a new student, his curriculum recalls the fundamentals Kuku
Speaker 1: instigated over a century ago. The first thing is the bar.
Speaker 1: The left hand. You gotta learn how to hold the
Speaker 1: bar between your thumb and your middle finger and squeeze it.
Speaker 1: What Jerry Bird would say, pinch it and flip the
Speaker 1: bar over, place it on the strings, hold it down
Speaker 1: and make sure that the bar is even with the frets.
Speaker 1: Here's another difference between the guitar and the still guitar.
Speaker 1: We place the bar over the line, not between the lines.
Speaker 1: Over the line. When you're sliding the bar, Yeah, keep
Speaker 1: the bar even. You can hear that. Keep it even
Speaker 1: with the frets. And then when you're exercising, going from
Speaker 1: one threat to the other, make sure you stop right there,
Speaker 1: right over the fret. Okay, put your bar on string three,
Speaker 1: fret three. Okay, Now, slide up to frat five and
Speaker 1: pick on string one, same string, fret three, same string
Speaker 1: fret six. The important thing is having that slide between
Speaker 1: the two notes. It's like when people sing, you know,
Speaker 1: the great singers, their notes are all connected. We have
Speaker 1: to do the same thing with this voice. By the way,
Speaker 1: that's an opening line for Beyond the Reef, a classic tune.
Speaker 1: Can you give me the next little bit of beyond
Speaker 1: the Ring? I'll play here. Back in the days of
Speaker 1: Joseph Cucku as Hawaiian's all over the archipelago. We're embracing
Speaker 1: this new invention. Dark clouds were looming on the horizon,
Speaker 1: So that's the first verse. By the early eighties, the
Speaker 1: political situation had grown incredibly tense in the islands. A
Speaker 1: number of merchants from other parts of the world were
Speaker 1: not only leasing lands for their own sugar plantations, pineapple plantations,
Speaker 1: and what have you, but they were also beginning to
Speaker 1: wrestle their way into the governance structure of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the sons of missionaries who had
Speaker 1: first received invitation to settle in the islands in the
Speaker 1: twenties developed very specific ambitions for expanding their own wealth.
Speaker 1: They begin also conniving their way into the governmental structure
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian Kingdom. By seven, David Kala Kawa, who
Speaker 1: is the king of Hawaii at the time, is forced
Speaker 1: to sign what's known as the Bayonet Constitution, which stripped
Speaker 1: Winian people of their voting rights and begins to significantly
Speaker 1: diminish the manner by which Kala Kawa can wield his
Speaker 1: sovereignty in the islands. He had seen this coming, and
Speaker 1: one of the methods by which he was pushing back
Speaker 1: was through music. He comes to realize, when asserting their
Speaker 1: sovereign right to govern themselves, Hawaiians should also recognize that
Speaker 1: sovereignty is constituted in cultural traditions as much as through
Speaker 1: anything else. He begins throwing these huge parties headlining Hawaiian
Speaker 1: music making as a very specific political sovereign practice, so
Speaker 1: music was immediately central to these political struggles. At the
Speaker 1: same time, hula dancing was being prohibited because plantation owners
Speaker 1: in the islands felt that the dancing was lessening the
Speaker 1: labor pool that they could draw from, that Hawaiians are
Speaker 1: spending too much time dancing or performing music, and that
Speaker 1: by prohibiting these things they would be able to gain
Speaker 1: greater control over the labor. The Hawaiians really rejected the
Speaker 1: plantation labor from the very beginning ng which is a
Speaker 1: whole other story, but music was implicated in all of
Speaker 1: these things. Fast forward a little bit by three, David
Speaker 1: Kyokawa's sister, Lilio Klani, is now the queen and the
Speaker 1: monarch of the islands, and she's arrested and imprisoned in
Speaker 1: her own home by a bunch of these American merchants
Speaker 1: backed by the U. S. Marines and a coup. She
Speaker 1: had always been recognized by world governments as the sovereign
Speaker 1: queen of the Islands. Hawaiians reached out to world leaders,
Speaker 1: demanding that that illegal overthrow be rescinded and that the
Speaker 1: monarch could be restored to her kingdom, but these calls
Speaker 1: for justice fell on deaf ears. Under house arrest, the
Speaker 1: queen was left to molder away and her elegant palace.
Speaker 1: Lilio Klani was herself an accomplished composer, and while she
Speaker 1: was cut off from the outside world, even denied newspapers
Speaker 1: to read, she managed to write songs and sneak them
Speaker 1: out of prison. These became anthems for people who were
Speaker 1: losing their home. The most famous is Aloha Oi, farewell
Speaker 1: to the one becomes clear that the United States is
Speaker 1: going to annex the islands. In Many of these musicians
Speaker 1: who had had their language prohibited from being taught in
Speaker 1: the schools, who have had their dances prohibited by the
Speaker 1: Calvinist missionaries and then the provisional government, and who were
Speaker 1: also quite well aware of how Native Americans are being
Speaker 1: treated on reservations in the us in order to sing
Speaker 1: the songs of Yo Kolani and her family, to sing
Speaker 1: the songs of the monarchy, and to advocate for the
Speaker 1: Hawaiian people. But I think they felt their obligation. In
Speaker 1: some cases, their only opportunity, rather than being rested under
Speaker 1: the control of these political authorities, was to leave the
Speaker 1: diaspora led away from the islands in all directions. I mean,
Speaker 1: Hawaiians have been traveling to other parts of the world
Speaker 1: for a very long time, but by the eighteen nineties
Speaker 1: you can see this incredible mapping out of Hawaiian musicians
Speaker 1: fanning into the world, playing in Shanghai and various parts
Speaker 1: of Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, throughout the United States,
Speaker 1: and in Europe as well. While Hawaiian music encompasses an
Speaker 1: array of long writing traditions, the styles that traveled with
Speaker 1: the diaspora became globally dominant genres. The first wine troops
Speaker 1: that really gained success outside of the islands are string bands,
Speaker 1: violin les, couple of guitars, often with the banjo, almost
Speaker 1: always playing hula kui music, literally the stitching together of
Speaker 1: new and old musical traditions. They were playing music that
Speaker 1: was written by members of their royal Hawaiian family. They
Speaker 1: were very specific in terms of their topics, being centered
Speaker 1: upon wine ideas, wine stories, wine places. By the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century early d you find other genres
Speaker 1: of music poppy up one much more in the pop realm,
Speaker 1: being happa holly music that can combine English with some
Speaker 1: Hawaiian words. That music was much more accessible for non
Speaker 1: Hawaiian audiences because they connect with the tim panale musical
Speaker 1: traditions that have become really popular in the US and
Speaker 1: in the Islands. Eventually, this string band has become more streamlined.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen twenties you begin to find you were
Speaker 1: violent and really see banjos anymore. You'll begin to see
Speaker 1: a troupe that consists of an acoustic guitar player, player
Speaker 1: probably not bright bass player, and steal player always. That's
Speaker 1: essentially the lineup musical troops far and wide would perform
Speaker 1: alongside dancers. Hula remains a domain for male and female
Speaker 1: dancers alike. In the nineteenth century, it was in some
Speaker 1: cases dominated by males, whereas most of the photographs that
Speaker 1: I've seen in the nineteenth century Hawaiian musicians are women.
Speaker 1: They began to shift to conform with the expectations of
Speaker 1: audiences that they were encountering outside of the islands, meaning
Speaker 1: by the early nineteen hundreds, men were essentially relegated to
Speaker 1: the stage as the technical performers on the instruments and
Speaker 1: women dancing in front of them. Hawaii would not be
Speaker 1: Hawaii without the dancing girls. Touring in the US generally
Speaker 1: meant hitching your cart to a particular circuit. The performers
Speaker 1: would sign onto a contract and then play town for
Speaker 1: a week and then take the train go to the
Speaker 1: next town. One was the Chautauqua circuit, kind of the
Speaker 1: white middle class antidote to Vaudeville, which they saw as
Speaker 1: low grade, trashy performances. Chautauqua circuit was a speaker's circuit.
Speaker 1: They would provide musical performances, poetry recitations, and actually a
Speaker 1: number of Hawaiian musicians, including Kuku, got involved in signing
Speaker 1: contracts with Chautauqua groups because they provided steady pay and
Speaker 1: access to booking that didn't require having your own manager
Speaker 1: to book every booking for every town. The other kind
Speaker 1: of circuit was the Vaudeville circuit. Essentially a variety show
Speaker 1: where you could have ten different acts in one night.
Speaker 1: Chinese acrobats, mariachi performers, black faced initial cy troops, and
Speaker 1: Hawaiian musicians as well performing, and they all play a
Speaker 1: handful of songs. The vaudeville circuits were appealing to musicians
Speaker 1: because you're booking is essentially taken care of now. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you to actually get paid, but you'd be scheduled,
Speaker 1: so it provided a really rapid way for them to
Speaker 1: dig into hitting all the markets in the US. One
Speaker 1: market rife with complication was the American South Hawin performers
Speaker 1: playing in the Jim Crow South encountered a lot of
Speaker 1: the same hostilities and potential threats of violence as other
Speaker 1: performers of color. One of the women that I interviewed,
Speaker 1: Lonnie McIntyre, was traveling with her father and her uncle's
Speaker 1: on tour throughout the United States. She remembers as a
Speaker 1: kid in Memphis, walking down the street and being spent
Speaker 1: on as a six year old. Her dad and her
Speaker 1: uncle's would look into a hotel in New Orleans, for example,
Speaker 1: assume a residency performing every night, but they wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to stay there. Because it was white only, and
Speaker 1: there are boarding houses that were set up all over
Speaker 1: the South, run for the most part by African Americans
Speaker 1: to cater to musicians of color who were touring the
Speaker 1: South and had nowhere to stay. Lonnie McIntyre told me
Speaker 1: at the same time that she recalls these all night
Speaker 1: jam sessions where everybody after their gigs would come back
Speaker 1: these boarding houses and you would again find mariachi performers,
Speaker 1: Hawaiians and African American singers, blues singers all playing together
Speaker 1: as a consequence of Jim Crow. It's hard to overstate
Speaker 1: just how popular this music became. My nine Hawaiian guitar
Speaker 1: music was out selling every other form of recorded music
Speaker 1: in the US. A lot of his popularity came down
Speaker 1: to the fact that it was seen as different and
Speaker 1: quite novel, elevated through the relentless touring. Hawaiian steel guitars
Speaker 1: are really the first guitars that are popularizing the guitar
Speaker 1: as a lead instrument. With still guitar on parade, manufacturers
Speaker 1: were always looking to improve the instrument's design. The biggest hurdle,
Speaker 1: especially for live settings, was the guitars low volume. The
Speaker 1: turn of the century twenty century, they were on acoustics
Speaker 1: a lot more picking right. They probably use a different
Speaker 1: tuning too. It would do rows like they would just
Speaker 1: pick more, you know. Later on Nationale came out with
Speaker 1: the track one. There was a Wise in Bound company,
Speaker 1: though Brow of Cars came out Worth Theirs that acoustically
Speaker 1: amplified the sound to a degree. And the thirties the
Speaker 1: electric amplifier was developed, and then the electric guitar, and
Speaker 1: the first electric guitar was a still guitar. In one
Speaker 1: the Rick and Backer Company began mass manufacturing its electro
Speaker 1: an aluminum lap steel with a tiny body and long neck,
Speaker 1: better known by its nickname the fry pan. A big
Speaker 1: difference with one amplification to sustain still guitars. Today you
Speaker 1: can make each note sing more, especially the lisandos. No
Speaker 1: instrument can do lisando like a steel guitar. As Hawaiian
Speaker 1: music took the world by storm, virtuosos of the steel
Speaker 1: guitar became international celebrities. It's on gospel music interpretive in
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian style by Hope. In terms of players, Saul
Speaker 1: Hopie is the player to listen to. He stowed away
Speaker 1: on a ship leaving the Islands to arrive in the US,
Speaker 1: worked as a boxer for a little along in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: trying to make ends meet, made his way down the
Speaker 1: l A and then redefined how people play steel guitar.
Speaker 1: Great players have come on since then, but he really
Speaker 1: set the bar high in terms of his musician ship.
Speaker 1: Allen's influences, many of which he studied under or shared
Speaker 1: the stage with, read like a who's who of still
Speaker 1: guitar fame. I was very lucky to be at the
Speaker 1: end of an era where I could play with so
Speaker 1: many different still guitars. So many my influences were like
Speaker 1: David feg Rogers, then his uncle Bennie Rodgers, of course
Speaker 1: Jerry Bird, and then Jewels. I'll see from what You Calls.
Speaker 1: There's a Call from Hawaii. How about You Calls was
Speaker 1: a show that was broadcast for about forty years, from
Speaker 1: pre war all the way to about nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: It was a showcase of the talent in the Islands
Speaker 1: out for the park. Every week. Stations across the United
Speaker 1: States and even in Japan would er what You Calls.
Speaker 1: Of course it probably would be one week later. America, Canada,
Speaker 1: Oh pretty nice and I remember a friend saying he
Speaker 1: would run home just in time to sit in front
Speaker 1: of the radio to listen to What You Calls? Oh,
Speaker 1: how are you Calls? Featured the great voices Alfred the PoCA,
Speaker 1: Danny Kinni Lau, great singing, great music arrangements by Benny Callama,
Speaker 1: still guitar, Oh yeah, lots of still guitar. And they
Speaker 1: had the best Jossie Barney, Isaac's Eddie Pang for a
Speaker 1: little while, Danny Stewart, j K Lee caud he had,
Speaker 1: David Killy, Joe Costino, Jerry Bird, Ohio born. Jerry Bird
Speaker 1: was especially influential in Allen's life. Hello, you know, video
Speaker 1: tape is a great engine and a medium for us
Speaker 1: to get together on a more personal basis. I met
Speaker 1: Jerry for the first time in the What You Cause Office,
Speaker 1: of all places. He sat me down, he says, play
Speaker 1: me something. I was holding the skinny bar and I
Speaker 1: was playing the still guitar. At the end of the song,
Speaker 1: he says, give me that bar. Sorry, handed it to
Speaker 1: him reluctantly, of course. And then here under wrapped this
Speaker 1: brand new bar. Now here is the most important two
Speaker 1: of all. It was wider, and it was to his
Speaker 1: specs two and five as long, three quarters of an
Speaker 1: age of diameter. He says, here, I'm going to show
Speaker 1: you how to hold this down. I use this and
Speaker 1: all of my teaching, and that was a start of
Speaker 1: my lessons with Jerry. He was an incredible teacher. Don't
Speaker 1: just play what's on the paper. I want you to
Speaker 1: play what's not on the paper. That's most important. He
Speaker 1: taught me musicality, which to me is the most important
Speaker 1: how to play musically rather than plain notes. The steel
Speaker 1: guitar had made its way from a distant chain of
Speaker 1: islands onto the global stage, and then America went Hawaii crazy.
Speaker 1: Who I'm saying, By the twenties and nineteen thirties, everybody
Speaker 1: knows what Hawaiian guitar is. In the US, nine lounges
Speaker 1: were opening, There were Hawaiian themed venues. This is real Hawaiian,
Speaker 1: even the Macaroni sal in Hollywood, New York. Into the
Speaker 1: parts of the country. Now let's stay on the same
Speaker 1: two strings and slant the bar and a forward slant.
Speaker 1: There's Hawaiian guitar schools set up all over the country,
Speaker 1: with hundreds and hundreds of boys and girls enrolled in
Speaker 1: the schools go to any seventh chord reversal land. At
Speaker 1: one time, Oahu Publishing in Cleveland, Ohio actually gave certificates
Speaker 1: of completion to two hundred thousand of the still guitar students.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, very easy, not difficult at all. We begin
Speaker 1: to find recordings by don Hawaiians adopting the steel guitar style,
Speaker 1: whether it's into the blues or into jazz. There's a
Speaker 1: transitional period where you actually do hear quite clearly these
Speaker 1: Hawaiian music motifs being integrated into other genres, most notably
Speaker 1: in country music. And Yacoff was kind of the king
Speaker 1: of the grand o opera. But before his rise to fame,
Speaker 1: his steel guitar artist, Bashful brother Oswald was literally stalking
Speaker 1: Hawaiian musicians trying to learn how to play the steel guitar.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to the Cuff records from the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties and you listen to Oswald's playing of the
Speaker 1: dough broke, you actually hear him taking all of these
Speaker 1: techniques from Hawaiian music making and adopting them to this
Speaker 1: country music sound. Did they say that if I ever
Speaker 1: came back and you show what they won't gold ring
Speaker 1: o w yes. The kika kila's application and what was
Speaker 1: then called hillbilly music led to the development of the
Speaker 1: pedal steel guitar, which rests on a stand outfitted with
Speaker 1: foot pedals and knee levers that raise or lower the
Speaker 1: pitches of particular strings. Finly, I'm falling more in love?
Speaker 1: What do you The steel guitar totally overtakes country music
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen forties as the pivotal central weed instrument.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen Sam Juel and Johnny. In the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: you see steel guitar and rock and roll music. Ironically,
Speaker 1: the wide scale endorsement of the steel guitar is why
Speaker 1: it's Hawaiian roots have been obscured as it's adopted into
Speaker 1: other traditions of music making in the US, and the
Speaker 1: steel guitar becomes dissociated from Hawaiians. Music making the Islands
Speaker 1: remains fiercely Hawaiian, but younger native Hawaiians they're listening to
Speaker 1: rock and roll, They're listening to the Beatles, They're listening
Speaker 1: to all this other music. If you fast forward to
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian Renaissance movement of the nineteen seventies, half a
Speaker 1: Hallowe music and hula kui music becomes a side of
Speaker 1: consternation for younger Hawaiians. They actually came to see that music,
Speaker 1: which was composed by Hawaiian people and performed by Hawaiian
Speaker 1: people in the early part of the century as being
Speaker 1: not politically mindful enough for really the realm of the
Speaker 1: tourist industry that they saw as wrecking the islands, destroying
Speaker 1: them literally. During the Renaissance, many Hawaiian musicians decided to
Speaker 1: avoid the steel guitar altogether. It never disappeared, but people
Speaker 1: didn't really know what to do with it. You hear
Speaker 1: some of the up and coming acts disparaging the steel
Speaker 1: guitar saying we're not into that kind of music because
Speaker 1: they've seen it so closely associated with tourist music and waikiki.
Speaker 1: So they began pursuing this acoustic music, embracing the slack
Speaker 1: key guitar. The folk music movement in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: is happening in Hawaii just as it is happening elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the country. That was you know, they hate ash
Speaker 1: very days Vietnam War. Things were changing in America, so
Speaker 1: was the style of music, and I could hear it
Speaker 1: in the islands. Here some recordings that are considered classics today,
Speaker 1: they're from that era. In those days, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to listen to them. I couldn't relate to them. They
Speaker 1: were not the traditional Hawaiian music that I grew up
Speaker 1: with and love. There are, however, some notable exceptions when
Speaker 1: you listen to some of those foundational earlier recordings by
Speaker 1: Gabby Pahnui and others, actually still guitars all over the
Speaker 1: place on this record. Feet Rogers was one of the
Speaker 1: steel players most associated with the Renaissance period of the seventies,
Speaker 1: and he had a very different, more subtle style of
Speaker 1: playing than what you did here with the Ape Alley music.
Speaker 1: David Fete Rogers was actually my first teacher. Off of
Speaker 1: his LP, the Five Faces album by the Suns Up
Speaker 1: You are what many of us called the Red album
Speaker 1: because of the cover. It was a new sound. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like the older traditional groups. It was different, but
Speaker 1: they were all traditional songs. But it was something about
Speaker 1: the steel guitar. It was such a simple style. It
Speaker 1: fits right between the cracks musically. I just loved his
Speaker 1: playing and followed him through the years. Every now and then,
Speaker 1: depending on the style of Hawaiian music, I'll kick into
Speaker 1: his style whatever fits, especially with the more contemporary Hawaiian music,
Speaker 1: because it's so simple strumming of the guitar they used
Speaker 1: to dole the melody of the songs. Even the lyrics
Speaker 1: in Hawaiian are different from before, different times, and so
Speaker 1: with the still guitar, you know, scaling back is a
Speaker 1: good idea. Are you gonna do something like this that
Speaker 1: might not fit? But if I do this, just a
Speaker 1: simple try at an archego that might fit better for
Speaker 1: a musician and artists, it's not just squeezing in but
Speaker 1: fitting in. Within the twentieth century, the steel guitars profile
Speaker 1: shifted from global ubiquity to relative obscurity. Today you hear
Speaker 1: steel guitar all over the place. It's an instrument that's
Speaker 1: become adopted widely for use and soundtracks because it's so
Speaker 1: evocative of the vocal of a human voice and talking
Speaker 1: guitar that is put to use in many different contexts.
Speaker 1: Even though nobody knows what the instrument is, nobody knows
Speaker 1: what they look like, nobody knows what they're called. The
Speaker 1: steel guitar has fallen out of the popular imagination. The
Speaker 1: sound is everywhere still, but the idea of it as
Speaker 1: an instrument and its connection to Hawaii is totally gone.
Speaker 1: The Hawaii legislature proposed a bill declaring the state instrument
Speaker 1: as the ukulele. I got wind of the meeting so
Speaker 1: late I ran down to the state capital where they
Speaker 1: were having the meeting. Members of Ukulele Company were just
Speaker 1: walking off the dark and they said, oh yeah, they
Speaker 1: just gave the testimony, and I went, damn, I better
Speaker 1: run in there. I got in there and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to vote on this now, and
Speaker 1: they said, wait, may I say something. You know, the
Speaker 1: still guitar is only string instrument modern day string instrument
Speaker 1: invented here in Hawaii. The kalle was adopted and adapted
Speaker 1: in Hawaii from a Portuguese instrument. Although the kal is
Speaker 1: well known more than the still guitar today, it was
Speaker 1: a still guitar that actually learned a lot of people
Speaker 1: to the islands, and in some cases it's still does
Speaker 1: still guitars, most of them here in Hawaii play Hawaiian
Speaker 1: music the uk You see it at festival, as you
Speaker 1: see it in videos. A lot of the locals playing
Speaker 1: non Hawaiian music. So the motion was, maybe we'll ask
Speaker 1: the students in the schools. I said, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: they only know the uk ell they probably don't know
Speaker 1: the still guitar. The chairman says, you know what, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna table it. Then let's do a little more research.
Speaker 1: A lot of people rolled in in favor of the
Speaker 1: still guitar. Well, the next year came about, they had
Speaker 1: another meeting and they made uk elli the state instrument.
Speaker 1: And it's like wow, Casai said. After the uk elea
Speaker 1: became the state instrument, you it was like this fire
Speaker 1: was burning inside of me. I wanted to do whatever
Speaker 1: I could to bring the still guitar back to prominence.
Speaker 1: I was attending it was called the Henry Allen Still
Speaker 1: Guitar Festival at the time. The hotel approach me and
Speaker 1: asked me would you take over the festival, which I did,
Speaker 1: and so I renamed it the Maui Still Guitar Festival.
Speaker 1: That same year, I was approached by one of the senators.
Speaker 1: He says, could you do one in Waikiki? What do
Speaker 1: you see? So all of a sudden I was running
Speaker 1: two still guitar festivals, and that's when I started my
Speaker 1: nonprofit hide Mela, which is the Hawaiian Institute for Music
Speaker 1: Enrichment and Learning Experiences. So it's Himeli that coordinates and
Speaker 1: operates all of these still guitar festivals. Him Mela now
Speaker 1: puts on eight festivals a year throughout the Eleans. Alan
Speaker 1: also travels the world doing workshops and conventions from New
Speaker 1: York to Yokohama, Japan. Kakola Mela Allen's music school on
Speaker 1: Oahu focuses on Hawaiian music, and he offers steel guitar
Speaker 1: lessons to anyone with an Internet connection, and so little
Speaker 1: by little we're reaching out. First thing you gotta know
Speaker 1: is how to hold the bar still. You times more visible.
Speaker 1: We have people playing that home or going to backyard parties,
Speaker 1: and then we have all these cake cake our youngsters
Speaker 1: in Hawaiian cake or playing still guitar and seeing adults
Speaker 1: in the audience with their jaws dropped. If you can
Speaker 1: imagine just a jam featuring kids and adults, we call
Speaker 1: it Conney Kapila in Hawaiian Conney Coppela strike the band.
Speaker 1: So we're doing this jab session, switching musicians, switching the instruments. Ah,
Speaker 1: this is so nice. This is hawai eat to me.
Speaker 1: And that's what many people told me. After all the
Speaker 1: steel guitars and signature sound of the Islands, signature sound.
Speaker 1: The steel guitar has come to be more greatly embraced
Speaker 1: by young Hawaiians today as they come to see it
Speaker 1: once again as part of the extraordinary constellation of Hawaiian
Speaker 1: music making due to the concerted efforts of Alan Akaka,
Speaker 1: who has really played a fundamental role in reintroducing the
Speaker 1: steel guitar to people throughout the islands. And then and
Speaker 1: then it might be putting in volunteer work to coordinate
Speaker 1: and operate these still guitar festivals. It's a start. So
Speaker 1: satisfaction for me really is the start of joy. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I come back and I'm like ready to
Speaker 1: not for twelve hours. But we're making the still guitar
Speaker 1: more visible. We're exposing many people to it. Have you
Speaker 1: ever tried? And the great thing is his free and
Speaker 1: open to the public. The workshops, the concerts, the jam session,
Speaker 1: they're all free. So little by little we're bringing the
Speaker 1: still guitar back to the Islands. Today. There's professional steel
Speaker 1: players in every kind of major music market of the country.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere in the world, I mean, there are steel players everywhere.
Speaker 1: They all congregate to really nerdy internet forums. That's kind
Speaker 1: of how you find them, how you track them down.
Speaker 1: But there are brilliant steel players, incredibly talented steel players,
Speaker 1: obsessed steel players. I mean. The reason why I started
Speaker 1: playing steel guitar originally before I even thought about where
Speaker 1: the steel guitar came from, was that I moved to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas thinking I'd be a guitar player and make money
Speaker 1: while I was in grad school, coming to realize that
Speaker 1: there were literally ten thousand other guitar players in Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas at that time. So I realized that I had
Speaker 1: to diversify and come up with other things that I
Speaker 1: could offer to bands, and so I took up the
Speaker 1: steel guitar. Steel guitarists are scarce enough such that they
Speaker 1: can be the go to players for all kinds of
Speaker 1: bands in their communities, but they're also growing in number.
Speaker 1: So I think the future is bright for steel guitar.
Speaker 1: But it's a fragmented story and it's one that doesn't
Speaker 1: really have much impact. And major conversations and popu war
Speaker 1: music today. They're they're kind of on the fringes, they're
Speaker 1: on the sidelines, but they're there. But who's to say
Speaker 1: the steel guitar will stick around this time. Alan feels
Speaker 1: the most vital contribution he can make is to inspire
Speaker 1: the next generation. Kickula Millery was started because I could
Speaker 1: see that other schools we're not really teaching Hawaiian. You
Speaker 1: were teaching everything else using the lookal l as a
Speaker 1: primary instrument. Maybe they're learning some rock and roll song
Speaker 1: that has four chords one, six, four or five and
Speaker 1: that's it. I want to bring back some of the
Speaker 1: old songs, some of the songs that talk about the islands.
Speaker 1: So in my class, I teach him about the islands,
Speaker 1: about the lifestyle, about the culture, even history through the
Speaker 1: songs like being power points of the past, especially for
Speaker 1: the young ones. You have no clue, so I can
Speaker 1: show them. I have a lot of baloo students. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of still guitarist students around the world,
Speaker 1: true skype and I have many different levels from you know,
Speaker 1: beginner all the way to a pretty done good able
Speaker 1: to take the stage that good. I'm teaching my student
Speaker 1: Malias some of the songs her great grandmother sang and
Speaker 1: she has the same range. Whenever I hear her saying,
Speaker 1: we say over here, you know chicken skin. Chicken skin
Speaker 1: is like goose pimples. And then I have another girl
Speaker 1: in elementary school and I'm teaching her songs. That's her
Speaker 1: great great grandfather wrote Alvin Isaac's and he wrote a
Speaker 1: lot of class tunes a lot. And her great grand
Speaker 1: uncle was on Hawaii cause was a famous steal guitarist,
Speaker 1: Barney Isaacs. And yet she's the only one in the
Speaker 1: family playing still guitar. We know, mom Now, I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: these are all your family songs. We're going to learn them.
Speaker 1: So she is, she's learning them. I said, yep, you
Speaker 1: gotta keep this going no matter what. You are the
Speaker 1: link to the past, Momocome. It's started like my contribution
Speaker 1: to society, especially for Hawaiian society. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of teachers, you know, teaching language, teaching hula, teaching protocol,
Speaker 1: or even teaching slacky or teaching singing and so on.
Speaker 1: But for me, it's solo, working ensemble with the still guitar,
Speaker 1: with songs that I grew up with, our played with
Speaker 1: these old timers, these legends bringing out those songs because
Speaker 1: if I don't, you know, it might die, it might
Speaker 1: fade away. M H m hm m H. Ephemeral is
Speaker 1: written and assembled by and produced by Matt Frederick, Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: and Max Williams. With special thanks to this episode to
Speaker 1: Daniel Tremblay, Laura Duff, Toby Nova, Ronald Young Jr. And
Speaker 1: to callin Troy for his ukulele rendition of k Sara Sara.
Speaker 1: John Troutman's book is Kika Kila, How the Hawaiian steel
Speaker 1: Guitar Changed the sound of modern music. And to find
Speaker 1: out what Alan Acock is up to and sign up
Speaker 1: for lessons via Skype, visit Kakola Mela dot com. K
Speaker 1: E k u l A m E l e dot com.
Speaker 1: Links to these and more at our website dot show
Speaker 1: Next Time on Ephemeral. Honestly, if it wasn't from my neighbor,
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Speaker 1: more earning. The phone rang and everything was going fast.
Speaker 1: The phone lines were going down, the electric lines, we're
Speaker 1: going down. And she said, the firest jumped the freeway.
Speaker 1: We haven't much time, and that's when I packed everything.
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