Gabby Pahinui
| Gabby Pahinui | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Philip Kunia Kahahawai |
| Also known as | Gabby Pahinui, Pops Pahinui |
| Born | April 22, 1921 |
| Origin | Honolulu, Hawaii |
| Died | October 13, 1980 (aged 59) |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Slack-key guitar, Steel guitar |
Philip Kunia Pahinui (Hawaiian pronunciation: [pɐhinui]; April 22, 1921 – October 13, 1980) was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Born into a struggling family, Gabby was born Philip Kunia Kahahawaii Jr. and later hānaied with his brother and one of his sisters to Philip and Emily Pahinui and raised in the impoverished district of Kaka'ako in Honolulu in the 1920s ("all tin roofs and kinda falling apart"). He spent his childhood supporting his family by selling newspapers and shining shoes. He dropped out of school after 5th grade at Pohukaina School.
Gabby landed a gig as a back-up guitarist for Charley "Tiny" Brown. He quickly mastered the steel guitar (kīkā kila) ever learning to read music. Because most musicians of the time only played in bars, Gabby also formed a drinking habit that stuck with him throughout his life.
At the 1st Annual Seattle Slack Key Guitar Festival, his son Cyril Pahinui related a story about how Gabby got his name. In his early career, he played steel guitar with an orchestra. The standard costume for the gig was gabardine pants—hence his name.
Though a skilled player of the steel guitar (invented in Hawaii before Blues slide guitar), Gabby is most known for his mastery of traditional Hawaiian slack-key guitar (Kī Hō'alu -"key slackened"- downtuned, usually to an open-string chord with low bass notes, then finger-picked) and his beautiful, expressive vocals. Gabby learned slack-key from Herman Keawe whom Gabby acknowledges as being "the greatest slack-key player of all time." Herman, like Gabby, lived in the Kaka'ako area.
Gabby married Emily at age 17 in 1938. They had ten children, four daughters and six sons.
In 1946, Gabby made his first recording, "Hi'ilawe," for the Bell Records label. This may be the first record of a Hawaiian song with slack-key guitar and it inspired many local musicians. The following year came "Hula Medley," the first record of a slack-key guitar instrumental. During this period he made two other influential sides for Bell, the vocal "Wai O Ke Aniani" and the instrumental "Key Koalu" (a misspelling of "Kī Hō'alu"), plus another version of "Hi'ilawe" for Aloha Records.
Pahinui's "Hula Medley," recorded in 1947, was inducted into the U.S. National Recording Registry (2011 group of 25) for cultural, historical or aesthetical significance.
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