Aloha Guitar: A Guide to Hawai`i's Slack Key Tradition

What's a haole boy from Minnesota doing writing about Hawaiian music?

Back in 1995, I started writing pieces about slack key guitar for Acoustic Guitar magazine, and eventually it occurred to me that 1) there was a book in this material, and 2) for some reason nobody else was doing it.

So I've been gathering material for five years, and looking for a publisher. In 1999, String Letter Press (which publishes Acoustic Guitar) took an interest, and a few months later I had a contract, an advance, and a (gulp) deadline.

Aloha Guitar will be about slack key guitar, its history, and its players--and if the business arrangements can be made, there will be a companion CD that will serve to introduce the music to readers who have not encountered it before.

More than half of the research is done, and I will be spending much of the rest of 2001 interviewing more players, along with the families, friends, and students of those who have passed away--Sonny Chillingworth, Atta Isaacs, Leonard Kwan, Auntie Alice Namakelua, and Gabby Pahinui.

Look on the home page for news of progress and (eventually) a definite publication date. Now it's back to work.

Winter 2002

After much delay, the book is finally taking shape, in draft form at least. I spent some time in Hawai`i in the late spring of 2001, doing interviews, listening to music, adding to my collection of research materials, and visiting the Bishop Museum to look for photos of musicians. Since then, I've done more interviews and managed to get some copy written.

In January of 2002, I was informed that String Letter Press had turned over its book publishing business to Hal Leonard, who had been their distributor up to that point. Fortunately, this has no direct impact on my book--the terms of the contract remain the same, and I will still work with the same editor.

With luck, a draft will be finished by early summer. After that, it's hard to say how long the editing and production process will take, but I hope by this time next year Aloha Guitar will have been in the bookstores for a while.