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Pictured is well known slack key musician Jeff Peterson, who appeared at the 2014 Slack Key Festival in Redondo Beach.

By C. MacDonald

REDONDO BEACH, CA–The world needs additional “slack key” musicians to make it a more peaceful, less hectic, enjoyable place. The 7th annual Southern California Slack Key Festival gave the packed Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center crowd an afternoon they will never forget. The festival featured the world’s best musicians, including Cyril Pahinui, son of the famous Hawaiian legend, the late Gabby Pahinui, Kawika Kahiapo, Jeff Peterson, Jim “Kimo” West and Troy Fernandez. They unleashed their beautiful music with heartfelt songs about ancestors, families, their passion for having fun jamming together, their love of each other, and Hawaii . 

Pictured: 2014 Slack Key Festival performers Kawika Kahiapo (left) and Jim “Kimo” West (right) posed with three time Grammy Award singer-songwriter “Weird Al Yankovic”  who came to watch. 

One of the most fantastic acoustical guitar traditions in the world, slack key, Hawaiian ki ho‘alu, dates from the 19th Century. Some of the strings are slacked from the standard tuning, with the thumb playing bass, while the other fingers play the melody and improvise in a finger-picked style. Read more>