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.

Latest News

January 12, 2012

Big Big Big Web Site Change

I've been thinking and planning and visualizing for most of last year, aiming at a shift from a hand-coded web site to one running on Wordpress. I've really been happy with the other sites I've built using Wordpress and I'd like to make Kaleponi.com more active and newsy which is definitely facilitated by the Wordpress engine and support structure.

So this post will become the placeholder for the old static site. I'll leave the previous pages in place so links will be maintained, but new updates will come through the new site.

If you want to reach this old site in the future, go to http://www.kaleponi.com/old

To reach the new site, go to http://www.kaleponi.com