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Is it ironic that we’d have a Hawaiian guitar fest in mid-winter in Hamilton, Ohio? Or is that just Alanis Morissette-irony? We don’t even know anymore. But we digress. The Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Fest features three masters of the slack key style — George Kuo, Dennis Kamakahi and Martin Pahinui — who, along with hot, rising ukulele star (yeah!) David Kamakahi, formed the quartet Hui Aloha (pictured), releasing a self-titled debut on Dancing Cat/Windham Hill last year. The slack key style — brought to the islands by Spanish and Mexican cowboys — is achieved by tuning down the strings, playing the bass with the thumb and finger-picking the other strings to provide melody and improvisations. And a hula dancer (we kid you not) will also be on hand to further warm things up.
At Miami University Hamilton on Saturday.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2000.