Bull by the Horns is a longer folk fingerpicking piece from my “Awake Again” project. I don’t often use a capo, but sometimes it’s nice to have that bright, chimey sound and snappy playability you get from moving up the neck. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 2/14/09.
Here is a version of my song “Ohio River Rag” recorded for the Awake Again project. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 3/1/09.
Here is a version of my song “Morning and Night” recorded for the Awake Again project. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 6/20/09.
Dust Yourself Off is a slack key influenced fingerstyle song from my Awake Again project. I hear the song as imbued with a sense of renewal and starting a new journey. This was to be the first full length song in the setlist, preceded by only a brief instrumental introduction. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 2/24/09
Momentum was a song I wrote not long after moving back to Kailua-Kona after being away for a while. Alternately titled “Rolling Waves,” I have added different bridges and changed the intro at times, but the core of the song remains the same. This version was recorded as a demo for my “Awake Again” project. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 6/8/09.
Here is a live version of “Punahoa Special” from 2007 (apologies for the camera work :-). This is a song I was fortunate enough to learn directly from Led Ka’apana, one that Led had in turn learned directly from his uncle Fred Punahoa. Though Fred never made a full album, he did make a notable appearance on the Waimea Music Festival album and fostered amazing talents of the next generation such as Led and Sonny Lim. This is an often covered song in the slack key world, and might also be the most popular song in Mauna Loa slack key tuning. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded live at the 25th Annual Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival “Kona Style,” at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort in Keauhou, Hawai’i 9/2/07.
Here is an improvised song from the vaults I dubbed “Straight Ahead Blues.” At the time I recorded this song, I was listening to a lot of the Clapton Unplugged album, which I still enjoy going back to from time to time. Same with the blues on acoustic guitar. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 2/26/09.
Here’s a demo of a song I wrote on electric guitar a while back. Then, as now, I played and recorded mostly acoustic fingerstyle tunes. This is one of a relatively few demos I made on electric guitar from that period in time. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii on 5/3/06.
I originally wrote Sunday Slack Key as a single string melody, using fretted notes on only one string (and the other strings only open). Playing the melody on only one string is a concept I picked up at a jazz guitar clinic – I seem to remember Tal Farlow or Jim Hall proposing the idea as a means for chord melody – and the idea can be useful when arranging a fingerstyle song. Eventually I added a few fretted notes on some other strings, mostly to fill out the bass, yet the fretted notes of the melody remain mainly on one string. The name for the song came to me on a simple, relaxed Sunday, and seemed appropriate. This version of the song was recorded about five years after I wrote it and reflects a few modifications to earlier incarnations. Hope you enjoy.
I originally wrote Sunday Slack Key as a single string melody, using fretted notes on only one string (and the other strings only open). Playing the melody on only one string is a concept I picked up at a jazz guitar clinic – I seem to remember Tal Farlow or Jim Hall proposing the idea as a means for chord melody – and the idea can be useful when arranging a fingerstyle song. Eventually I added a few fretted notes on some other strings, mostly to fill out the bass, yet the fretted notes of the melody remain mainly on one string. The name for the song came to me on a simple, relaxed Sunday, and seemed appropriate. This is an early version of the song recorded not long after I wrote it. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i, 6/01/06.