Steel guitarist, 77, adds to family’s musical legacy

In 1990, when his four children were on their own and he retired from a 35-year career as a submarine safety coordinator at Pearl Harbor, Jimmy Wong began checking things off his bucket list.

He learned the hula, line dancing, bon dancing and ballroom dancing at a senior center near his Kane­ohe home.

He received a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2000, when he was 63 years old.

And now, at age 77, he is becoming accomplished on the steel guitar (15-year-old Joseph Kekuku invented the instrument in 1889 when he slid a metal bolt he found along a Hono­lulu railroad track on the strings of his guitar).

Wong comes from a musical family. His dad, John Kao­nohi­lani, played the clarinet and saxophone for the Royal Hawaiian Band and the ukulele, guitar, bass, banjo and mandolin for the Hawaiian Serenaders, a popular group in the late 1930s through 1940s.

His brother, Joe Marshall, played the upright bass for the Na Hoku Hano­hano Award-winning Sons of Hawaii for 32 years. His uncle Edward Lili­ko‘i was the steel guitarist for various groups that entertained passengers traveling between Hawaii and the West Coast on the SS Lurline and SS Matsonia in the 1950s. And his aunt Violet Pahu Lili­ko‘i, Edward’s wife, was Auntie Genoa Keawe’s bass player for more than 60 years.

For years Wong enjoyed playing the guitar, but when arthritis developed in his hands, he could no longer move and stretch his fingers to form chords. He figured it would be a good time to pursue his longtime interest in the steel guitar because it doesn’t require the left hand to make quick, complex movements.

Coincidentally, in 2010 Wong was stopped at an intersection in Kai­lua when an ad on a passing car caught his eye: Ke Kula Mele Hawai‘i, Alan Akaka School of Hawaiian Music.

"Alan was driving," Wong recalled, "and I followed him and scribbled down the phone number that was on the ad. I called him a few days later to set up lessons."

From the beginning Wong was entranced by the steel guitar’s haunting sound and its ability to evoke a wide range of emotions. "Like the violin, the steel guitar produces a beautiful vibrato," he said. "By doing that, musicians can put more expression into their interpretations of songs, especially slow, melodic ones such as ‘Akaka Falls,’ ‘Hawaii Calls’ and ‘Beyond the Reef.’"

Although Wong was thrilled to be learning a new instrument, he had to take a break from lessons after a few months: He got into a car accident and underwent a lengthy recuperation, then he and his wife, Elizabeth, decided to sell their Kai­lua home and move to a townhouse in Kane­ohe.

"When my life was back to normal, I wanted to resume lessons," Wong said. "In fact, I had been thinking about it for a while when I saw Alan at Longs in Kane­ohe. I started taking weekly one-hour lessons from him again in March last year."

Wong will be one of the featured soloists at this year’s Wai­kiki Steel Guitar Festival, which Akaka has organized since its inception four years ago. Back then, entertainer and radio and TV personality Brickwood Galu­te­ria (now a state senator) was in charge of booking talent for Wai­kiki Beach Walk’s free Hawaiian music presentations.

Both men were involved with the 2010 Maui Steel Guitar Festival; Galu­te­ria was the emcee, and Akaka helped to obtain and schedule performers.

At the event, Galu­te­ria approached Akaka with the idea of presenting something similar on Oahu, and a few months later, on July 4, the inaugural Wai­kiki Steel Guitar Festival delighted an enthusiastic crowd of Hawaiian-music fans seated beneath a blue sky and nodding palms at Wai­kiki Beach Walk.

In preparation for his solo appearance at this year’s festival, Wong is practicing two to three hours every evening. Elizabeth enjoys the private concerts and Wong appreciates her feedback.

"I ask her, ‘How did that sound? What do you think?’" Wong said. "It’s nice to have her as a critic even though most of the time she says she likes everything that I play. We’ve been married 26 years, and it’s my way of serenading her."

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.