The Hawaiian Music Connection

Of course most folks think "steel guitar" when they think of Hawaiian music. So, what happened when a black Holiness Pentacostal church musician went to Hawaii? Sacred Steel was born. It is a longer story, and very interesting (check out the link on the sidebar to Arhoolie Records, and you will find lots of Sacred Steel material).

In this clip, from (I beleive) Sacred Steel, a documentary on the subject by Robert Stone and put out by Arhoolie Records and the Arhoolie Foundation, we see the Campbell Brothers (probably the finest Sacred Steel musicians out there) at their best:

Of course, since the fame brought to this once very obscure musical tradition hit, the musicians weren't content to stick with playing for the same crowd every Sunday, especially the younger ones. So, from a Holiness church to the jam band world, bands like the Lee Brothers and Ray Ray are doing to this music what Little Richard (whose cousin, Katie Jackson, incidentally, is a singer in a Sacred Steel church) did with mid-century gospel music:

Robert Randolph is probably the biggest name of these musicians who "crossed over." He is phenomenally talented:

Undoubtedly some of you are thinking, "what, Sacred Steel? This stuff has only been on the scene for, what, ten years? You used to push this stuff for Arhoolie!"

Well, with YouTube and the commonality of broadband, it is fun to see the video material that is available, and is worth a re-exploration.