Joseph Kekuku‘upenakana‘iapuniokamehameha Apuakehau, Jr. (1874/75 – January 16, 1932), better known as Joseph Kekuku, was a Hawaiian-American musician and the inventor of the

steel guitar A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...

. He discovered the sound of the steel guitar after tinkering with an old Spanish guitar. Born in the

Hawaiian Kingdom The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ɛ ɐwˈpuni həˈvɐjʔi, was an archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands. It was established in 1795 w ...

, Kekuku later immigrated to the

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in 1904 to pursue a successful career in music, where he lived until his death. In 1993, he was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life

Joseph Kekuku‘upenakana‘iapuniokamehameha Apuakehau, Jr. was born in Laie, a village on the island of

Oahu Oahu (, , sometimes written Oahu) is the third-largest and most populated island of the Hawaiian Islands and of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu's southeast coast. The island of Oahu and the uninhabited Northwe ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. Conflicting information surrounds his date of birth: either October 19 or December 19 in 1874, or December 29, 1875. When Joseph was 15, he and his cousin, Sam Nainoa left for a boarding school in

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

Discovery of the steel guitar

In 1889 while attending the Kamehameha School for Boys, Kekuku accidentally discovered the sound of the steel guitar. In an article first seen in 1932, C.S. DeLano, publisher of the "Hawaiian Music In Los Angeles" whose "Hawaiian Love Song" was the first original composition to be written for the Hawaiian Steel Guitar said:

'"Joseph told me that he was walking along a road in Honolulu forty-two years ago, holding an old Spanish guitar, when he saw a rusty bolt on the ground. As he picked it up, the bolt accidentally vibrated one of the strings and produced a new tone that was rather pleasing. After practicing for a time with the metal bolt, Joe experimented with the back of a pocket-knife, then with the back of a steel comb, and still later on with a highly-polished steel arvery similar to the sort that is used today."'

Career in the United States

In 1904 at the age of 30, Kekuku left Hawaii and would never return. He started in the United States by performing in vaudeville theaters from coast to coast. His group was "Kekuku's Hawaiian Quintet" and were sponsored by a management group called "The Affiliated." In 1919, Kekuku left the U.S. for an eight-year tour of Europe traveling with "The Bird of Paradise" show. "The Bird of Paradise" show started on Broadway, and was well-received in Europe. Kekuku returned to America on board the

United States Lines United States Lines was an organization of the United States Shipping Board's (USSB) Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), created to operate German liners seized by the United States in 1917. The ships were owned by the USSB and all finances of t ...

ocean liner SS Republic in October 1926. On the evening of October 3 he performed in the passenger-led benefit concert for seamen’s charities and the Actors Fund of the United States, as was customary on transatlantic crossings. In the programme from the evening he is referred to as “Mr. Joseph Kekuku (Originator of the Hawaiian Guitar Method)”. Bird of Paradise Ad

"The Bird of Paradise" was so popular that it became a film in 1932 and again in 1951, though Kekuku was not in either film. At the age of 53, Kekuku settled in Chicago and ran a popular and successful music school. In 1932 Joseph Kekuku lived in Dover, New Jersey, with his wife and gave Hawaiian guitar lessons.

Death and legacy

On January 16, 1932, at the age of 58, Kekuku died in Morristown, New Jersey, of a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...

.Ruymar, Lorene
"The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians"
via

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. Centerstream Publications, 1996. . Accessed November 23, 2008. Kekuku is buried in the Orchard Street Cemetery. In 1993, Joseph Kekuku was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame with full honors as the inventor of the Hawaiian steel guitar. A statue of him was erected at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii in 2015.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

HMHFM Honorees - Joseph Kekuku
at www.hawaiimusicmuseum.org
Owana Salazar - About Hawaiian Steel Guitar
at www.owanasalazar.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Kekuku, Joseph 1870s births 1932 deaths Native Hawaiian musicians People from Dover, New Jersey People from Laie Steel guitarists Inventors from Hawaii