During the dark days of World War II, weekend jam sessions were bright times for Henry Kaleialoha Allen’s family. Friends and relatives would pack their Manoa home to eat, "talk story," sing and play music until the wee hours of the morning, including Albert Merseburgh, Allen’s uncle, who was a renowned steel guitar artist.

After the guests had left and his parents and uncle had gone to bed, Allen would sneak into the living room and "practice" on the steel guitar. One night in 1943, Allen’s uncle woke up and caught him with picks in hand.

"If you want to learn how to play the steel guitar, you must take it seriously, not horse around," he told the 10-year-old boy sternly. "Watch me and listen."

Allen blossomed under his uncle’s tutelage, and today he is regarded as a steel guitar virtuoso in his own right. A gifted performer, teacher, composer and song arranger, he is the namesake of the Henry Kaleialoha Allen Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival, now in its fourth year.

The festival is part of the annual Maui Invitational Music Festival sponsored by the Arts Education for Children Group, a nonprofit Lahaina-based organization that offers opportunities for artistic and cultural enrichment, including restoring music programs at Maui schools.

"The Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival is a way to preserve and perpetuate the only truly Hawaiian stringed instrument," says Bryant Neal, the arts group’s executive director. "Before we launched the festival, there was no event in Hawaii that educated people about the steel guitar’s history and impact. The festival honors Henry and his accomplishments as a living treasure of Hawaiian music." Allen’s wife, Sherron, serves as the festival’s producer.

Attendees will enjoy the chance to meet and mingle with steel guitar masters at free classes, concerts, workshops and jam sessions. "It’s inspiring to see so many talented performers come to the festival to share," Neal said. "Visitors can listen to their music, chat with them and learn about a complicated instrument that takes a great deal of skill, motivation and discipline to play."

ALLEN, 78, the author of "How to Play the Hawaiian Steel Guitar," will be on hand daily to share his knowledge and expertise. For many years, he was one of the steel guitarists for the famed "Hawaii Calls" radio show, which, at its height in the 1950s and 1960s, was broadcast on more than 750 stations around the world.

The Hawaii Academy of Recording Artists and the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts have recognized him as a "master artist" of the steel guitar and Hawaiian music.

"Henry will open the Saturday night concert with a solo progression of chords that has a flowing ‘waterfall’ effect," Sherron Allen said. "It’ll take you back to the peaceful, innocent days of old Hawaii. Every time I hear Henry play, it brings tears to my eyes. The steel guitar is the voice of aloha."

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.

HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN STEEL GUITAR

A comb that struck the strings gave rise to a musical phenomenon

In 1886, when Joseph Kekuku was 11, a comb in his shirt pocket fell onto the strings of the guitar he was playing, resulting in a rich vibrato sound. Enthralled, the boy, who was born and raised in Laie on Oahu, began experimenting with this new playing technique.

Three years later, Kekuku designed a steel bar for the instrument in his machine shop class at Kamehameha Schools. The bar was more durable than a comb, provided better control and improved the sound quality.

Thus was born the steel guitar. Instead of being held like a conventional guitar, it was laid flat on the musician’s lap. The instrument stole the show at the 1914-1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and by the 1920s, its popularity had spread across the United States.

Within a decade, the first electric steel guitar became available, and soon after, manufacturers were introducing models with stands and double necks with eight strings instead of six.

The instrument’s heyday was the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, largely due to its inclusion in bands playing for "Hawaii Calls" and in the elegant dining rooms of Matson Navigation Co.’s luxury liners, which cruised between Hawaii and Los Angeles and San Francisco between 1927 and 1978.

The steel guitar almost disappeared in the 1960s because, in addition to being difficult to play, it is expensive. Gretsch Guitars manufactures steel guitars that sell for about $500, but individual craftsmen’s prices run into the thousands.

On May 13, at Windward Mall, entertainer Alan Akaka will be leading an effort to set a world record for the largest Hawaiian steel guitar ensemble playing together. The group will perform "Nani Waimea." For details and to sign up to participate, go to www.hawaiiansteelguitarworldrecord.com.

Check out the nonprofit Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association’s website, www.hsga.org, for information about instructors, performances, conventions and membership benefits. HSGA has more than 600 members worldwide.

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi