To be completely accurate, I'd have to say the steel guitar was invented in Hawai'i during the years 1885-1889 by Joseph Kekuku'upenakanai'aupuniokamehameha Apuakehau. To make life easier for me, I will refer to him as Joseph Kekuku. Joseph was born in La'ie, island of O'ahu in 1874. His shop teacher at Kamehameha School for Boys helped him to fashion a cylindrical steel bar and metal finger picks, also to change the strings from gut to metal. During his years at school Joseph perfected the method of playing this new instrument and taught his classmates who took the new method of playing to other islands when they went home for school breaks.

Before I develop the story, I believe I should go further back in time. Hawai'i was discovered by Captain James Cook in 1778. From then on it became a stopping place for trading ships bound from Europe and America to the Orient. Could the sailors on those ships have carried guitars with them? For sure! To provide fresh meat for the ships' crews, cattle ranches were established. To manage the cattle, horsemen were brought in from Mexico. Did they bring guitars with them? For sure! The Hawaiians quickly learned to play them, but developed a straight major chord tuning called "slack key" because the keys were slackened from the standard tuning. An eight year old boy would naturally lay the guitar across his lap to "play" it. If he saw the grown-ups slide a jack knife or a glass tumbler or a comb across it to produce a novelty effect at parties, wouldn't the boy pick up on that idea? Joseph's family didn't recognize that the boy's persistent bad noises were the beginning of something great. In the Hawaiian language, it was called "kika kila", translated literally as "guitar steel".

So it was that by the end of the 1880's many people were playing the steel guitar in the Hawaiian islands and a few ventured overseas carrying their new sound for all to admire. The first we have record of were July Paka and Tom Hennessey who took their guitars to the U.S.A. in 1899, toured with a Hawaiian show group "Toots Paka's Hawaiians" and caused a huge demand for Hawaiian music. Many Hawaiian musicians and entertainers followed. Joseph Kekuku took his steel guitar to the U.S.A. in 1904, and later joined the Bird of Paradise show which toured Europe from 1919 to 1927, playing before the crown heads of many countries. We believe he is the first to play the steel guitar in Europe. Jenny Wilson and her Hawaiian troupe had appeared in England in 1894, but there is no evidence that a steel guitarist was included. Joseph made recordings while in England, the songs being "Tell me More", "I'll See You In my Dreams" and "When you and I Were Seventeen". (Do any of you have one of these ancient wax cylinder recordings?)

In her book "The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians", Lorene Ruymar (ahem!! that's me) tells of many Hawaiian tour groups and their travels to distant parts of the world carrying their new steel guitar sound with them. No group was complete without the kika kila. Steel player Tau Moe was the greatest traveller of all. He left Hawai'i in 1927 with his wife Rose. With their two children Lani and Dorion, they spent 60 years touring the world, living in each country for many years. Some of the countries where they lived and performed in are: the Philippines, all of Asia including Japan and China, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, over forty years in Germany, then Belgium, France, England, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Israel, Greece, Egypt, Tonga, Australia, and New Zealand. They spent the WWII years in India, and returned to Hawai'i in the late 1980's where Tau, Lani and Dorian live to this day. Rose has passed on. Tau related in his story that almost everywhere they went the voice of the steel guitar had already been heard on the recordings of virtuoso Sol Ho'opi'i who must have had the greatest agent of all time. Another much travelled steel player of the early days was Sam Ku West. Many Hawaiians toured in show groups attached to Vaudeville shows, Circus shows, or the Chautauqua. They performed in World Fairs and Expositions, on radio and in movies.

The steel guitar was never absent from "Hawaii Calls", the most popular program in radio history, from 1935 to 1975. It started with the Harry Owens band with Alvin Isaacs on steel, Webley Edwards at the microphone. Later the Al Kealoha Perry band took over. They broadcast from the outdoor dance stage of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and later from the Moana Hotel's lanai under the banyan tree. They were heard on 750 stations in the U.S.A., Canada, Latin America, Europe, Korea, Japan, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The steel players were: Alvin Isaacs, Freddie Tavares, David Keli'i, Jake Keli'ikoa, Jules Ah See, Danny Stewart, Eddie Pang, Joe Custino, and the one to close the show was Alvin's son, Barney Isaacs.

For the most part, these steel players stayed in Hawai'i and developed a true Hawaiian style based on their traditional music. Gabby Pahinui's name should be included, as he was certainly one of the greatest. Also Billy Hew Len. I cannot possibly name them all. Other great steel players departed from Hawai'i and "mixed it" with music cultures of other lands, both by taking on other music influences, and by infusing their Hawaiian style into other music forms. The first one I should list is Joseph Kekuku himself. He left Hawai'i in 1904 and never returned. After his eight years touring Europe he settled in the U.S.A., as a music teacher and performer. Some who settled in the U.S.A. were Andy Iona, Sam Koki, Sol Ho'opi'i, Benny King Nawahi, Dick McIntire, Jim & Bob the Genial Hawaiians, etc. Others settled in Indonesia, Japan, England, and so on.

I can speak with the most authority on activities in North America, and must apologize to readers in other parts of the world where the story was also played out, but not mentioned here. I want to talk about the exchange of influences. The Hawaiians adopted a somewhat jazzy style of playing, referred to as "West Coast Hawaiian", and at the same time their steel guitar sound was being adopted in other music forms. In the deep south players of blues and folk music took in the acoustic steel guitar, often with a glass bottleneck doing the work of the steel bar. Hillbilly string bands eagerly embraced the steel guitar with its human voice qualities. In the 1930's a new genre developed, known as Western Swing. The earliest record I could find was of the Smokey Woods and His Wood Chips band with J.C.Way on steel. Leon McAuliffe played steel with the Light Crust Doughboys in 1934, and other steel players of Western Swing were Noel Boggs, Herb Remington, Earl Joaquin Murphey, etc.

In the early 1920's the cowboy movie star Hoot Gibson brought Sol Ho'opi'i to Los Angeles to play in his band. That's the earliest record we have of the Hawaiian steel guitar being used in country music. That's when Hoot introduced Sol to Hollywood. In 1929 Rudy Waikuiki taught Beecher "Pete" Kirby to play the steel. He took it to the stage of the Grande Ole Opry under the name of Bashful Brother Oswald. The first player of electric steel guitar (that we know of) to join a country music band was Little Roy Wiggins playing with Eddie Arnold. Then came Jerry Byrd, born in Lima OH 1920, clearly a genius in his playing style and his arrangements. He had an incredibly smooth, expressive, and fluid style. He played with all the top country bands and vocalists, making many solo records as well as recording with other stars. He composed many songs, and invented his own tuning, the complicated C6+A7 that is more versatile than any other. In 1972 he moved to Hawai'i where he could immerse himself in his first love, Hawaiian music. Alarmed at the scarcity of young steel players in the Islands, he began to teach and by this date has created perhaps 20 outstanding top-level young steel guitarists where there were none before. Jerry is still teaching as of today. Although steel players were embracing the pedal steels of the 1940's, Jerry stuck faithfully to his double-neck Sho-bud. He felt that pedals diminished the playing skills of the musician and were inflexible for solo playing with expression.

In the 1930's and 1940's most big American cities had a posh hotel where a Hawaiian style dance band created a South Pacific atmosphere, and the big band always had a star steel guitarist. I'll name just one: The Hawaiian Room in the Hotel Lexington, New York in the 1930's with band leaders Ray Kinney, George Kainapau, and Lani McIntire, steel players Andy Iona, Sam Koki, Hal Aloma, and Sam Makia. Radio broadcasters picked up their live perfomances. Hollywood producers made them part of their movies. Sol Ho'opi'i not only played in the movies, but played on the set to put the stars in the proper mood for the next scene. He also played the background to the Looney Toons cartoon series. Dorothy Lamour and Bing Crosby produced many South Pacific type movies with the steel guitar prominent in the sound track.

Most big cities also sported a Hawaiian Conservatory of Music where students enrolled for group lessons on the steel guitar using courses by the Oahu Publishing Co., or Roy Smeck, or Eddie Alkire's Alkire Eharp Method, or a host of others. The International Guitar League brought all the schools together for conferences, trained teachers, set standards, and did much to promote the instrument and its development.

What about the physical development of the steel guitar? The very first were converted from wooden acoustic Spanish guitars by raising the strings with a pencil or a metal converter nut, but in time manufacturers began building them with square necks and strings raised a half inch off the fretboard. Fret markings were just painted on, no need for metal inserts. When the instrument was played flat on the knees the sound went up to the ceiling, so the need was seen to use material that would resonate more and produce a louder sound. In 1928 The National String Instrument Corp. was formed by George Beauchamp, John and Rudi Dopyera. They built guitars with aluminum cone resonators and both wooden and metal bodies. The metal bodies were built of bell brass covered with German silver. These beauties had great volume, tone, and sustain. By 1929 they had split up and the Dopyera brothers started their own Dobro Guitar company. In 1933 they got back together again, but George Beauchamp left the group to join Adolph Rickenbacher who had been building the metal bodies for them.

Perhaps it was Lloyd Loar, an employee of the Gibson Guitar Co. 1919-1924 who built the first electric steel guitar pickups, but the Gibson company took no notice and they were not patented. But in 1931 Adolph Rickenbacher and George Beauchamp introduced the Rickenbacher Electric Frying Pan because that's what it looked like. Others had made imperfect models in the years before, but the new Frypan was a success. This is the first working electrified instrument ever built and patented, as far as I have been able to discover. From then on inventors gave their full attention to "perfecting" the steel guitar in many ways. From six to eight strings. From single necks to double, triple, quadruple necks. From no legs to guitar stands with legs, to guitars built into table tops complete with modesty skirts. Many companies experimented with pitch changing levers so the player could change from one tuning to another by flipping a lever. All of this was leading up to the pedal steel guitar. Alvino Rey claims the honor of having invented the Electraharp in 1941, with four foot pedals to pull on the cables to alter the pitch of the strings. The early pedal players were careful not to change the pitch of a string while the note was sounding. That was a most un-Hawaiian sound. But in 1954 on a Webb Pierce recording of "Slowly", Budd Isaacs (not related to Barney Isaacs) used that effect and from then on it has been the signature sound of the pedal steel guitar, used and admired by all its players. But that's another story.