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.
Philip Kunia Pahinui, known as Gabby Pahinui, was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
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 who was an established contemporary instrumental music performer. 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.
James West, also known as Kimo, is a Canadian guitarist best known for working with "Weird Al" Yankovic.
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.
Peter Moon was an American ukulele and slack-key guitar player.
Elmer "Sonny" Lim is a Hawaiian musician and slack key guitar player from Waimea (Kamuela) on the Big Island of Hawaii. Sonny is part of the musical Lim Family of North Kohala.
Phillip Jackson, best known as Norton Buffalo, was an American singer-songwriter, country and blues harmonica player, record producer, bandleader and recording artist who was a versatile proponent of the harmonica, including chromatic and diatonic.
Jeff Peterson is an American slack key guitar player from Maui, Hawaii. The son of a paniolo at Haleakala Ranch, Peterson was exposed to the sounds of slack key at an early age.
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.
Owana Kaʻōhelelani Mahealani-Rose Salazar is an American musician and activist. She is thought to be the only female steel guitar player in Hawaiʻi trained by Jerry Byrd.
The Sons of Hawaii was a Hawaiian musical group that became popular among mainstream audiences from the 1960s through the 1990s.
The Brothers Cazimero were a Hawaiian musical duo made up of Robert Cazimero on bass and Roland Cazimero on twelve string guitar. Robert also played piano as a solo musician. The Cazimeros got their start during the Hawaiian Renaissance with ukulele and slack-key guitarist Peter Moon's band, The Sunday Manoa, on their first recording, Guava Jam. Since that time, The Brothers Cazimero have released at least 36 recordings and three DVDs. For three decades, the group performed at the annual Lei Day Concert. They made their Carnegie Hall debut in 1989.
Makana, born Matthew Swalinkavich, is a slack-key guitar player, singer, and composer.
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.
Cyril Pahinui was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
