If you like the “twang” of country music or the “whine” of blues, then you should thank the influence of Hawaiian musicians, specifically Joseph Kekuku, credited with inventing the slide guitar, and Sol Ho’opi’i, Frank Ferrera, Sam Ku West, and “King” Bennie Nawahi and others for spreading its influence far and wide on record and live.
In the early part of the 20th century, Hawaiian music became hugely popular, coinciding with the colonial annexation of Hawai’i and the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Americans were fascinated with the culture of this newest American territory and many mainlanders started playing not only the ukulele, but to a lesser extent, the slack key guitar and the “slide” guitar. The shorthand most slide players use nowadays for the lap style of guitar, the “Dobro,” hides the fact that the slide guitar descends from Hawaiian music and not the West African “Diddly Bo” as has been promulgated for many years. Personally, if I’m asked more specifically about the instrument I play, I will call it the Hawaiian Resophonic guitar and not the “Dobro,” as I use that only as a shorthand. Dobro comes from the Dopyera Brothers and the word they created for the brand of their instrument. The “Resophonic” part of that moniker leaves no doubt that they invented the resonator itself and how it was built but the style of playing the music is wholly attributed to Hawaii and the way its musicians heard their own music. Thus, we get the much more specific first word in the name of the instrument. The instrument and the name for it are both amalgams of different ideas, which leads me to my next point.
The idea of “purism” in music is rather ridiculous at its core. There is no “pure” music just as there is no “pure” instrument. There would be no Bill Monroe without Robert Johnson and there would no Robert Johnson without Joseph Kekuku. I have never heard any argument about what is or is not bluegrass or blues or jazz from a working musician. Musicians know inherently that no music comes from nothing; everything has an origin from something else and the point is the enjoyment of the music itself, not the politics surrounding it. It is never static; it breathes and flows and changes and becomes other than how it started. Jazz played in 1900 is very, very different from Jazz played in 1955 or 2010. There are many layers and stages to every “genre,” another word we use as shorthand. The creative soup that results from people of different cultures meeting is the spice that makes musicians want to learn continuously their entire careers.
Both the influence of Hawaiian music on modern styles and the fact that so few people realize it is the reason I wanted to write this article. I would encourage you to buy or stream any recordings of Sol Ho’opi’i and his brothers or heck, take your old guitar, put it on your lap and grab a bottle! I promise it to be a fascinating journey into another dimension of the guitar, one which never ends.
Many thanks to CBA Regional Director Donna Hargis for sending in this article.