Slack-key guitarist Ledward Kaapana shows his skill with other string instruments

“Jus’ Press Vol. 2”

Led Kaapana

(Jus’ Press Productions)

Ledward Kaapana is rightly known as one of the greatest Hawaiian slack-key guitarists of his generation, but the soft-spoken virtuoso plays several other string instruments with comparable skill. On this one-man-band project, he plays ukulele, guitar, bass and tipple (a guitarlike instrument slightly smaller than a guitar).

The songs represent the music Kaapana grew up listening to in the 1950s and early 1960s — much of it on battery-powered radios in the isolated village of Kalapana. The Hawaiian and hapa haole instrumentals are closest to home — “‘Opihi Moemoe” and “Ei Nei,” to name two. He works his instrumental magic with equal skill on haole (non-Hawaiian) melodies such as “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Yellow Bird,” the former a 1929 Fats Waller composition, the latter the English version of a 19th-century Haitian song.

Most entertaining for its sheer whimsy is “Elephant Walk,” Kaapana’s version of Henry Mancini’s Grammy-Award winning composition “Baby Elephant Walk,” from the 1961 movie “Hatari!” Mancini’s music is several worlds away from isolated Kalapana, but Kaapana makes the melody his own.

Visit ledkaapana.com.

“Loli‘ana”

John Keawe

(Homestead Productions)

Big Island slack-key guitarist John Keawe gained statewide attention in 1978 when Keawe’s Homestead Gang won a spot on Ron Jacobs’ “Homegrown III” album with a song titled “Kaauhuhu Homestead.” As a solo artist, Keawe is a multi-Hoku Award winner and a two-time recipient of the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts’ Ki Ho‘alu Award. He recorded this collection of songs — he translates the title as “change, variation, evolving” — with two other Big Island residents who have similar credentials: Charles Recaido plays bass, rhythm guitar and assorted percussion and rhythm instruments; Sonny Lim plays steel guitar, rhythm guitar and bass.

For the record, Keawe is a multi-instrumentalist as well; he plays ukulele, acoustic slide guitar and ohe hano ihu (bamboo nose flute) in addition to slack key. Keawe’s ki hoalu (slack key) ties the tunes together even when other instruments come to the fore.

Keawe’s annotation heightens the appreciation of his melodies. The dark tones of “Kepaniwai” become more significant with the knowledge that the song refers to a battle in 1790 that ended with corpses clogging a river that ran red with blood. So too is “Betrayal,” which commemorates the overthrow of the legitimate government of Hawaii in 1893.

Visit johnkeawe.com.