The history of the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festivals had its early beginnings in 1982. It was grounded in aloha and for the love of the music and man that was synonymous with the music. It was an opportunity to pay tribute to the contributions of a man who contributed so much to the music of Hawaii, and at the same time, continue his legacy and help to perpetuate and preserve a unique Hawaiian acoustic guitar art form known as “Ki-ho’alu”. Joining us in this effort have been dozens of individuals and corporate citizens in the community who have shared our vision and commitment to Hawaii’s culture and arts.

In 1980 Charles Phillip Pahinui, also known as Gabby ‘Pops’ Pahinui, passed away. A giant in his own time and legendary to many around the world through his music, he was one of the few that led the way for what is now referred to as the “Hawaiian Renaissance” that had its roots in 1960’s. Through his music and style, Gabby was able to inspire and motivate young Hawaiians to be proud of their cultural heritage. Further, through sincerity and passion for his music, he showed that Hawaii’s traditional music, and in particular, Ki-ho’alu, was an art form that was special and unique to Hawaii and worthy of being played in front of a large audience and quality venues and recorded for an even larger audience. It is an art form that began nearly 160 years ago on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii and was worthy of devoting much of his time to master. Till this day, he is recognized as the “modern day father” of the slack key guitar and its greatest master. In March of 2001, a bust of Gabby was dedicated and placed on a pedestal at the entrance of the Waikiki Shell which will forever immortalize this Hawaiian cultural icon. Further, he has also been honored with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the annual Na Hoku Hano Hano Music Awards (Hawaii’s Grammy Award) and in February of 2002 was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame with a tribute concert in his honor at the historic Hawaii Theater in Honolulu.

In tribute to him, the festival was started as a way to honor his efforts and accomplishments in 1982 in his hometown of Waimanalo on the island of Oahu. Beyond our wildest dreams that first festival drew several thousand people and gave us the impetus to continue producing the festival on an annual basis on the island of Oahu in Honolulu. After the first 10 years of the festival, we realize that there was a groundswell of interest and support for the festival statewide as well as overseas. Thus, today, the festival is now produced not only in Honolulu but also on the islands of Kauai, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii. Just about the same time when we began expanding the festival to the outer islands, there was interest from the continental United States as well. Hence, we began taking the festival to such cities as Seattle, WA., Portland, OR., and numerous cities in California such as Nevada City, Sacramento, Davis, Napa, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, and San Diego. To date, the festival has now been done in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Chicago, Paris, France, Germany, and the UK. In 1994 the festival represented the United States in Tokyo, Japan at the “American Music Festival”. What began as a tribute to a simple man from Waimanalo in 1982 has now taken on a larger identity. Further, over the last 7 years, the festival has also become somewhat of an economic generator for the State of Hawaii as more and more visitors to the islands are scheduling their vacations around one of the festivals (we have found that some of the visitors attend all of them and rotate the islands according to what festival they want to attend in any given year).

Visit the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival Official Site to find out more!