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| Dancing Cat Records | |
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| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | George Winston |
| Distributor(s) | Valley Entertainment |
| Genre | Hawaiian music |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Official website | www |
Dancing Cat Records is a record label founded in 1983 by pianist George Winston to publish both his music and music in the Hawaiian slack-key guitar style. Its mission later expanded to cover other Hawaiian musicians. Dancing Cat's albums were originally distributed by Windham Hill Records. Since 2020, the record label has been distributed by Valley Entertainment. In 2024 Dancing Cat's Hawaiian Slack Key catalog was sold to Valley Entertainment.
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| Other | |
| | This article about a United States record label is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
Keola Beamer is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar player, best known as the composer of "Honolulu City Lights" and an innovative musician who fused Hawaiian roots and contemporary music. Keola Beamer descends from one of Hawaii's most respected musical families.
Edwin Bradfield Liloa Chillingworth, Jr., known as Sonny Chillingworth, was an American guitarist and singer. Widely influential in Hawaiian music, he played slack-key guitar and is widely regarded as one of the most influential slack-key guitarists in history.
Philip Kunia Pahinui, known as Gabby Pahinui, was an American Hawaiian slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music. He also went by Pops Pahinui.
Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii. This style of guitar playing involves altering the standard tuning on a guitar from E-A-D-G-B-E, which has been used for centuries, so that strumming across the open strings will then sound a harmonious chord, typically an open major. This requires altering or "slacking" certain strings, which is the origin of the term "slack key". The style typically features an alternating-bass pattern, played by the thumb on the lower two or three strings of the guitar, while the melody is played by the fingers on the three or four highest strings. There are as many as fifty tunings that have been used in this style of playing, and tunings were once guarded fiercely and passed down as family secrets. In the early 20th century, the steel guitar and the ukulele gained wide popularity in America, but the slack-key style remained a folk tradition of family entertainment for Hawaiians until about the 1960s and 1970s during the second Hawaiian renaissance.
Ledward Kaapana is a Hawaiian musician, best known for playing in the slack key guitar style. In 2011, he received a National Heritage Fellowship, the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. He also plays steel guitar, ukulele, autoharp, and bass guitar, and is a baritone and falsetto vocalist. He received Na Hoku Hanohano Awards from the Hawai'i Academy of Recording Arts (HARA), and has been nominated for Grammy Awards.
The Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists from 2005 to 2011 for quality Hawaiian music albums. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency, and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
George Otis Winston III was an American pianist performing contemporary instrumental music. Best known for his solo piano recordings, Winston released his first album in 1972, and came to prominence with his 1980 album Autumn, which was followed in 1982 by Winter into Spring and December. All three became platinum-selling albums, with December becoming a triple-platinum album. A total of 16 solo albums were released, accumulating over 15 million records sold, with the 1994 album Forest earning Winston a Grammy award for Best New Age Album. Winston received four other Grammy nominations, including one for Best Children's Music Album, performed with actress Meryl Streep, and another for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for his interpretation of works by the rock band the Doors.
Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaʻoleohelemanu Kāne, was one of Hawaii's acknowledged masters of the slack-key guitar. Born in Koloa, Kauaʻi, he grew up in Nanakuli on Oʻahu's Waiʻanae Coast where his stepfather worked as a fisherman.
Dennis David Kahekilimamaoikalanikeha Kamakahi was a Hawaiian slack key guitarist, recording artist, music composer, and Christian minister. He was a three-time Grammy Award winner, and in 2009 he was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame.
Leonard Keala Kwan Sr (1931–2000) was one of the most influential Hawaiian slack-key guitarists to emerge in the period immediately preceding the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance of the 1970s. He made the first LP of slack key instrumentals, co-wrote the second slack key instruction book, and composed a number of pieces that have become part of the standard repertory. Most players will include Kwan, along with Gabby Pahinui, Sonny Chillingworth, and Atta Isaacs, on a list of the most significant players of the older generation.
Ozzie Kotani is a slack-key guitar player and a well-respected teacher, arranger, solo performer and accompanist.
December is the fourth solo piano album from George Winston. It was recorded during the fall of 1982 and was released at the end of the year. It is a Christmas album, and more generally a tribute to the winter season. The album is a follow-up to Winter into Spring from earlier in 1982.
George Kahumoku Jr. is a Grammy Award-winning Hawaiian musician specializing in slack-key guitar.
Daniel Ho is an American musician, composer and producer specializing in innovative approaches to slack-key guitar, ukulele, and Hawaiian music. He has recorded 18 solo albums, some of which have won or were nominated for Grammy Awards, and has produced over 50 albums.
Brian Witkin is an entertainment attorney and entrepreneur from Del Mar, California as well as founder and CEO of Pacific Records, an independent record label based in San Diego, California. He is also a founding member of Hawaiian themed group, Slack Key Ohana. In 2005, at the age of 19, Witkin was featured in San Diego Magazine for young people to watch and in Feb. 2015 was named “Kickass Entrepreneur” in the San Diego Union Tribune Witkin is the son of Joe Witkin the original pianist for the band Sha Na Na, and the grandson of Evelyn M. Witkin an American geneticist who was awarded the National Medal of Science by President George W. Bush in 2002 for her work on DNA mutagenesis and DNA repair and the grandson of Herman Witkin, an internationally known American psychologist and senior research scientist at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J. Witkin is also the nephew of computer scientist Andrew Witkin
Valley Entertainment is an American independent record label and music distributor based in New York City, United States. The company was founded in 1994 by Barney Cohen and Jon Birge. In 2001, it acquired the prestigious back catalogue of space, ambient, and new-age music from Hearts of Space Records. As of 2017, it has a catalogue of about 375 releases.
Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music. It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Patrick Landeza is a contemporary Hawaiian slack key guitarist. He is the first mainland-born Hawaiian to win a Nā Hōkū Hanohano music award. He was born in Berkeley, California on June 23, 1972.
Pacific Records is an American, San Diego, California–based music label founded in 2003 as an independent record label and music publisher. Amongst the labels releases are albums by O-Town, Slack Key Ohana and the Guitar Legends television special soundtracks. Helmed by CEO Brian Witkin, a San Diego–based entertainment attorney, the seeds of Pacific Records were planted in 1999, with the opening of Real2Reel Records, at first in his parents' home before relocating in November 2004 to a shop located inside all-ages music venue "The Epicentre" in San Diego's Mira Mesa neighborhood. The shop initially began releasing music under the Real2Reel name, but soon changed to Pacific Records. While the shop closed in June 2007, Pacific Records continued as a label. Witkin signed both local and national talent from the beginning, including San Diego's Get Back Loretta and Virginia based, Life's Only Lesson. A short time after, the imprint was acquired by Wingnut Media Group, Inc, based in Del Mar, California, soon transferred to Georgi Entertainment, LLC. In 2009 Witkin purchased the company back under the holding company New Pacific Group, currently, Pacific Records, Inc. The label includes in house recording studios, engineering marketing and distribution.