“`Imi Au Ia `Oe” with Led Kaapana

Welcome to Kaleponi Records, my musical home on the web. My name is Fran Guidry, and I play kika ki hoʻalu or Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Kaleponi is the Hawaiian word for California, where I live. Ki hoʻalu, or slack key, has a direct link to California history. The guitar was carried to the Big Island of Hawaiʻi by vaqueros from California. You can read more about the history of slack key guitar on the Dancing Cat Records web site.

Slack key guitar is named for the retuning that characterizes the style. Most of these new tunings feature loosened, or slackened, strings which give a deep rich sound.

My personal slack key history goes back to 1999 and my first visit to Hawaiʻi. When we turned on the TV in our Waikiki hotel room I was captivated by the playing of Keola Beamer. I knew in an instant that I had to learn to play this beautiful music. Over the years I've learned from great players and teachers like Ozzie Kotani, Keola himself, Patrick Landeza, Kevin Brown, Cyril Pahinui, Kawika Kahiapo, Raymond Kane, Dennis Kamakahi, and Ledward Kaapana.

Friday, June 21st, 2019

We’re back in Hawai’i for a visit so I set out to find a new location for our video adventures. Since we were staying in Kane’ohe I looked there and found Kane’ohe Beach Park. Compared to the gorgeous miles of sandy beaches in Kailua and other locations around O’ahu, the beach in Kane’ohe is not too impressive, but the tradeoff is plenty of parking and plenty of quiet. After a little experimenting we came up with a pretty nice bit of video featuring this old waltz.

Imi Au Ia Oe is credited to both Charles King and Queen Liliʻuokalani, with King apparently using lyrics by the Queen and adding his own melody. The song was used for a stage production and as a movie theme song.

I first heard the song on a Sonny Chillingworth recording along with an instrumental arrangement by Keola Beamer and I began playing it some years ago. Recently Led and I have played it together fairly often. This bit of video captures our feelings on that day, at that time – it might be a bit of a stretch to call it an arrangement, since we will almost certainly play it differently next time.

Led and I have few more tunes that we’ve never captured on video so I’m looking around for some other filming locations. With all the beauty that surrounds us here on O’ahu I expect to come up with some good ones.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 21st, 2019 at 8:34 am and is filed under Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.