Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaoleohelemanu Kane, R.I.P.

[rollhead]

Ray Kane, Master of Slack-Key Guitar, Dies at 82
By MARGALIT FOX
Ray Kane, an internationally known master of the Hawaiian slack-key guitar, died last Wednesday in Honolulu. He was 82 and lived in Nanakuli, on the island of Oahu.

The cause was respiratory failure, his wife, Elodia, said.

Though Mr. Kane (pronounced KAH-neh) did not consider himself a professional musician until he was in middle age, he is widely credited with helping revive interest in his instrument in Hawaii and around the world. A welder by trade who learned the slack-key guitar as a boy, he was among the first people to bring the instrument into the concert hall.

In the traditional Hawaiian slack-key style, the strings of a standard guitar are tuned down — that is, slackened. This unorthodox tuning lets the guitarist play a full, resonant chord simply by strumming all six open strings at once, without having to use the left hand on the fret board. The resulting music, which is also characterized by traditional rhythms and ornamentation, is often described as liquid, rippling and hypnotic.

Every slack-key player tunes the instrument differently, and the tunings, which were often passed down in families, could be guarded as fiercely as any trade secret. Mr. Kane usually tuned his guitar to match his singing voice, approximately G major.

The slack-key guitar has its roots in the 19th century, when Spanish and Mexican vaqueros came to Hawaii to herd cattle. They brought their guitars with them. In the decades that followed the slack-key style, known in Hawaiian as “ki hoalu,” developed spontaneously in the islands. In the early 20th century, it could still be heard everywhere: at luaus, on the beaches and in family homes. But by the end of World War II, slack-key guitar, like many traditional Hawaiian arts, had begun to wane.

Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaoleohelemanu Kane was born on Oct. 2, 1925, on the island of Kauai and reared on Oahu. (His middle name, quite prophetically, means “the voice of love that comes and goes like a bird and will never be forgotten.”)

At 4, Ray learned the ukulele and the standard guitar from his father. At 9, he became entranced with the slack-key guitar after hearing a local man play it on the beach. A skilled fisherman even as a child, Ray traded fish for guitar lessons. After serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Mr. Kane returned to Hawaii, performing mostly for family and friends.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Kane made his first recordings, singing and playing his own compositions as well as traditional songs. In 1973, he gave what is believed to have been the first full-length solo slack-key guitar recital, at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The concert brought renewed attention to the instrument.

Mr. Kane taught widely for many years and performed in Hawaii, on the United States mainland and in Japan. In 1987, he was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Besides his wife, Elodia, a traditional singer who often performed him, Mr. Kane is survived by a sister; 2 brothers; 7 children; 20 grandchildren; 22 great-grandchildren; and 2 great-great-grandchildren.

Among his albums are “Master of the Slack Key Guitar” (Rounder Records, 1988); “Punahele” (Dancing Cat Records, 1994); and “Wa’ahila” (Dancing Cat, 1998).

In an interview from the mid-1970s quoted on the Web site allmusic.com, Mr. Kane expressed surprise at his celebrated career.

“I don’t know why they picked me,” he said. “I wasn’t famous. I wasn’t playing anywhere. I was just trying to stick to the style I learned back in the 1930s.”

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Fabulous guitarist! This is the album of his I have, along some other tracks on various slack key comps::




As bostontricky mentioned in the WAYLT thread, both Ray and the great vocalist Auntie Genoa Keawe passed between the time I recommended them and the time BT left the islands. I have and can recommend all three of these albums by Genoa:



Ray and Genoa were among the last of the older generation of authentic Hawaiian musicians.

[Ron Thorne]

My wife and I were fortunate enough to witness his genius, along with several other slack-key guitar masters a few years ago in Anchorage. We have a sizeable Hawaiian population, so are treated to many cultural wonders from time-to-time.



R.I.P., Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaoleohelemanu Kane~

[Gentle Giant]

I must admit I've been a little surprised that there are apparently a goodly number of people here who are into Hawaiian music. I must plead ignorance to the genre, having assumed it's all Don Ho crap. I do own Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's Facing Future, but frankly got it more as a novelty item. As I respect the tastes of those who post about this music on the WAYLT threads, and about this gentleman, I am very curious about what I must be missing, and wonder where a good place to explore this music further might be.

[craigz]

Hey! Don't disrespect Don Ho, Master of the Slack Jawed Ukelele.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Iwonder where a good place to explore this music further might be.

Start with Gabby Pahinui -- the albums Gabby (aka The Brown Album), Rabbit Island, and Pure Gabby are all great ones. Check out my other recent recs to BostonTricky on the WAYLT thread. A trip to islands wouldn't hurt, either

[Gary Sisco]

I bet he had fun writing his name on job applications...

[Jon Abbey]

I thought Sol Hoopii was the man to beat?

[Gary Sisco]

I'm not familiar with the music. Why is it called "slack key"?

[rollhead]

This is what I found on Wiki:

Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaiʻi. Its name refers to its characteristic tuning: the English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hōʻalu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key". Most slack-key tunings can be achieved by starting with a classically-tuned guitar and detuning or "slacking" one or more of the strings until the six strings form a single chord, frequently G major.

Kī hōʻalu is often characterized by the use of an alternating-bass pattern, usually played by the thumb on the lower two or three strings of the guitar, while the melody is played on the three or four highest strings, using any number of fingers. Many kī hōʻalu players incorporate various embellishments such as harmonics (chimes), the hammer-on, the pull-off, slides, and damping. Slack key compositions exhibit characteristics from indigenous Hawaiian and imported musical traditions. The vamp or turnaround (a repeated figure, usually at the end of a verse) is descended from the hula tradition, and other harmonic and structural features are descended from hīmeni and from the hula kuʻi encouraged by King David Kalakaua. [5]

Nearly all slack key requires retuning the guitar strings from the standard EADGBE, and this usually (but not always) means lowering or "slacking" several strings. The result will most often be a major chord, although it can also be a major-seventh chord, a sixth, or (rarely) a minor. (There are examples of slack key played in standard tuning, but the overwhelming majority of recorded examples use altered tunings.) The most common slack key tuning, called "taro patch," makes a G major chord. Starting from the standard EADGBE, the high and low E strings are lowered or "slacked" to D and the fifth string from A down to G, so the notes become DGDGBD. As the chart below shows, there are also major-chord tunings based on C, F, and D.

Another important group of tunings, based on major-seventh chords, is called wahine (Hawaiian for "woman"). G wahine, for example, starts with taro patch and lowers the third string from G to F#, making DGDF#BD. Wahine tunings have their own characteristic vamps (as in, for example, Raymond Kāne's "Punahele" or Gabby Pahinui's 1946 "Hula Medley") and require fretting one or two strings to form a major chord. A third significant group is Mauna Loa tunings, in which the highest pair of strings are a fifth apart: Gabby Pahinui often played in C Mauna Loa, CGEGAE.

There are many slack key tunings—George Winston has identified fifty[6]—with some tunings only commonly used for a single song, or by particular players. The most common tuning is Taro Patch, which is a G-major tuning. Mike McClellan and George Winston have developed schemes that organize the tunings by key and type. The chart below follows their categories and naming conventions.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

I thought Sol Hoopii was the man to beat?

That's steel guitar, not slack key.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

I thought Sol Hoopii was the man to beat?

I think square dance turned me on to the Hoopii brothers. Great stuff.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Squaredancecalling Steve

That's steel guitar, not slack key.

He was a master of alternative tunings, though, right?

[Gary Sisco]

Alright, then. It's what I learned to call open tuning coming up. The open G major tuning is what the old-time bluesmen called, for reasons I don't know, "Spanish tuning." Keith Richard often uses it, along with using five strings -- another thing relatively common to oldtime bluesmen. That's why a lot of guys can play the same notes and chords that Richard plays but don't get the color and timbre he gets. His playing on "Brown Sugar" is an example. It can be and is, by thousands, played with the standard tuning but it doesn't sound the same.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Originally Posted by rollhead

I think square dance turned me on to the Hoopii brothers. Great stuff.

Two different people:

Solomon Ho'opi'i Ka'ai'ai (1902-1953) -- steel guitar

Solomon (1936-2006) and Richard Ho'opi'i -- masters of the leo ki'e -ki'e, Hawaiian falsetto. I LOVE these guys. They lived upcountry Maui, were doo wop fans in their youth and combined influences from Doo Wop falsetto with the traditional material.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

BTW, the brothers used Ledward Kaapana as their slack key guitarist of choice, and I think he's the best ever. He's ubiquitous on island recordings over the past three decades.