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Gary A
Lokahi
USA
169 Posts |
 Posted - 12/02/2002 : 5:33:20 PM
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Cord International has put out a series called Vintage Hawaiian Treasures containing collections of restored recordings of 78 RPM records. Volume 7 is the History of Slack Key Guitar. It's not really a complete history of slack key guitar, but it is a historically interesting collection because it contains the first twenty commercial slack key guitar recordings. The recordings were all originally released from 1945 through the early 1950s.
Five of the cuts are by Gabby Pahinui (Hula Medley, Wai O Ke Aniani, Ki Ho'alu and two version of Hi'ilawe). The rest are by relatively unknown players: George "Keoki" Davis, Henry Kaalekaahi, Abraham Kalauli Konanui, George Kaapana, William Namhoe, Tommy Solomon, Mike Ho'omananui, and Tommy Blaisdell. Five of the cuts are vocals, the rest are instrumentals. Only a few cuts feature solo guitar, most are ensembles with an accompanying guitar, uke and/or bass.
The liner notes are outstanding. Every track gets a paragraph or two detailing the tuning(s) used, information about the performers and pointing out interesting things about the performance that you might miss if you're not listening carefully.
The only drawback is the sound quality. The pops and clicks have been eliminated, but there is still a lot of surface noise and some distortion. Listening to old 78 recordings is definitely an acquired taste. You have to learn to look past the sound quality and enjoy the performance and the chance to hear what people were playing 50+ years ago.
It's an interesting exercise to listen to this random collection of old slack key recordings and see which ones you like or to contrast them with modern slack key recordings. They are definitely different than the "Dancing Cat" solo slack key style. In my opinion the Gabby Pahinui recordings do stand out, although there is some very nice playing on a number of other tracks.
One other nice feature is that it's also available in an inexpensive cassette version (in case you're like me and don't like to pay the full CD price for something you'll listen to occasionally but not often). The Cord International website is http://www.cordinternational.com/
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Gary |
Edited by - Gary A on 12/02/2002 7:16:42 PM |
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Pops
Lokahi
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2002 : 11:18:25 AM
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Gary,
I just got the CD for Christmas and it's outstanding! You're right about the liner notes too. I've been listening to remastered 78s for the last 30 years or so, so the sound quality doesn't bother me at all. Gabby's cuts are arguably perfect and I love his trio sound!
Peace,
Pops |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2002 : 2:03:00 PM
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I was delighted and excited when this CD came out--it's a crucial piece of Hawaiian music history. Since George Winston produced it, it's safe to assume that the 78s are the best examples he could find, and for some cuts, maybe the only ones. It's a lot like the situation the blues researchers faced forty years ago, except that there don't seem to be any stashes of clean-sounding Bell, 49th State, and Aloha metal parts sitting in the vaults waiting to be discovered and remastered.
I confess to being fascinated by this time-machine stuff. As far as I can discover, this was not music that had been played in public up to this time, so it was not much influenced by the demands of radio or nightclub audiences. In this way it's a bit like "hillbilly" music at the time of the Bristol recording sessions--it's still closely coupled to the ordinary lives of the people who made it, even if the skills of the players are anything but ordinary.
The other fascination for me is trying to figure out the lines of transmission and influence and development that run from the kind of slack key represented by Auntie Alice, through most of these players, to Gabby, who is clearly the most "modern" of the bunch. The rhythms of most of these cuts strike me as being more "square" than Gabby's. (The noteworthy exception is Mama Tina Kaapana's "Puna'ulu," which has a polished sound that you can hear on club-influenced recordings.) On the other hand, the playing is in general more elaborate than Auntie would have liked--or, to be precise, it's not old-style in the same way hers was.
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