Masters of Hawaiian Music: George Kahumoku Jr., Led Kaapana, and Jeff Peterson

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Three masters, featured regularly at Maui’s renowned Slack Key Show,^® bring Hawaii’s unique folk styles, with origins in the early nineteenth-century Hawaiian paniolo (cowboy) culture, to twenty-first-century stages. They themselves grew up in rural areas where immersion from childhood in Hawaiian music and culture was both entertainment and education.

Four-time Grammy-winner and master slack-key guitarist George Kahumoku Jr., known as “Hawaii’s Renaissance Man,” is a multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano (Hawaiian Grammy) Award winner, a vocalist, storyteller, songwriter, author, teacher, sculptor, farmer, and chef.

A master of the slack-key guitar and National Heritage Fellow, Led Kaapana has been one of Hawaii’s most influential musicians for four decades. His mastery of stringed instruments, his exceptional picking style on slack-key guitar and ukulele, and his extraordinary vocal range from baritone to leo ki`eki`e (falsetto) have made him a musical legend and earned him multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards.

Guitar virtuoso Jeff Peterson is a star of the next generation, winning the 2014 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award for Best Slack-Key Guitar (his second time). His virtuosity shines through in traditional slack key, as well as in jazz and classical. Five of Peterson’s songs are featured in the award-winning George Clooney film The Descendants.

George Kahumoku Jr. is the embodiment of Hawaiian cultural history and its awakening over the last century.

—No Depression

Without a doubt, Led Kaapana is one of the guitar’s greatest fingerstyle players. For over four decades this master of Hawaii’s unique slack-key guitar style has delighted audiences with his music.

—Acoustic Guitar

Add the Peterson name to the Top 10 list of slack-key giants.

—Honolulu Advertiser