The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey guys, one of the things I was wondering about recently...I need to practice a bit on improvised fills with vocals (accenting vs taking top billing) and that sort of thing. I'm mostly interested in the mid-century Hawaiian stuff...Hawaii Calls, Alfred Apaka, etc...but not unsurprisingly those tend to have lots of great steel guitar work. I'd like to play along with some albums and practice "fitting in" and supporting vocal lines, that kind of thing...any good recordings I should seek out that have the usual guitar / uke / bass / vocals arrangements but a vacant hole where the steel guitar usually is (thus allowing me to practice in that space)?

Hope that makes sense!

Aloha Nic,

Check out the Kahauanu Lake Trio’s album “Hapa-Haole Hulas” (it’s on YouTube as well). They were progressive for their time, but are now considered a classic sound.

Also https://youtu.be/sNKzfouoAz0...possibly the only song Genoa Keawe ever recorded without steel guitar (Benny Rogers reportedly left the building...)
Genoa Keawe is real Hawaiian style!!

Of course, how could I forget “Sunset at Makaha”!?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... oons939p6k

Again, real honest-to-goodness music recorded by Hawaiians for Hawaiian listeners...to be enjoyed by all.

I submit this humbly since Jeff has made recommendations, but even though this does not meet all of your criteria, I have found it helpful as a "music minus one" practice CD. It has the following tracks played both by Bud Tutmarc with the backing group, and then again without the steel guitar. No vocals though.

South Sea Island Magic
Bud Tutmarc

CD Tracklisting:
1. South Sea Island Magic
2. My Yellow Ginger Lei
3. Dancing Under the Stars
4. Little Brown Gal
5. Only Ashes Remain
6. Leihua Nani
7. Paradise Isles
8. Sea Breeze
9. Pua Carnation
10. Sweet Someone

Note: This CD also includes background tracks of all the songs listed above as bonus tracks.

http://www.marcrecordsmusic.com/releases/

(scroll down to about the 18th CD)

I thought "Only Ashes Remain" was kind of a "deep track" choice, since I don't know how popular it is these days, but I always loved the Kalima Brothers/Richard Kauhi Quartette version.

Mahalo to you both, those are great leads!

And Jeff, off topic but is there good places / times to catch you playing? Making our first pilgrimage (O'ahu and Big Island) next month....

hi, Nic --
Taropatch.net has a collection of links to videos of many of the songs in He Mele Aloha:
http://www.taropatch.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9603
The purpose of this is to learn the songs, since the book has no indication of melody or phrasing. But it may provide a few good ones to play along with.
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As I recall,Don Ho and his Ali'i's didn't have much if any steel guitar.But you could always have dual steels.
ALOHA!