WRAD: The Aloha Collection
by Paul Spindle
posted 2006-06-28
I love Kauai. I love everything about it. With the exception of maybe the trip there. They say, "it's the journey, not the destination." Well, I don't buy that in this case. The flight is what I don't like. Once you finally get there, it starts getting better. And once you leave the airport, WOW! It actually begins to feel like the trip was worth it. Once you turn left onto the highway, it just keeps getting better. After about ten miles or so, you make another left onto the "tree covered" road. Drive a couple of miles on that road and you end up in Old Koloa town. Go through town, make another left on Poipu road go about a half of a mile and you are there. You realize why you just spent the last six hours on that winged tin can.
A couple of years ago I was there with my family. We were staying at Poipu beach, having a blast. A little of surfing, a little snorkeling and a lot of relaxation. One night we all decided to have dinner at the Beach House. A nice restaurant just west of Poipu on the way to spouting horn. The Beach House is a very popular dinner spot, known for its lovely sunsets. Quite romantic.
I guess you need to make reservations there. We didn't. Not wanting to wait the hour and a half to maybe be seated, hungry kids do not allow for waiting, we decided to eat dinner in the bar. We had a lovely dinner. A bit spendy for my tastes but, lovely none-the-less. As we were ordering our deserts a group of locals came in having what appeared to be in my brothers words, "too much fun". That's just him. Anyway, it was one of their birthdays and they had every right to enjoy themselves as much as they wanted.
We enjoyed our deserts, paid our bill and got up to leave. At my sister-in-laws suggestion I spoke up loudly telling everyone that we had a birthday in the house and that we should all sing "Happy Birthday" to him. At which time I started in "Happy birthday, to you. Happy birthday to you...." Everybody joined in. Before we got to "Happy birthday dear..." I leaned in and asked one of the guys what was the name of our guest of honor. He told me and I yelled out "STEVE" and we all finished one of the best renditions of "Happy Birthday," ever.
The crowd went crazy. Handshakes, high-fives and hugs all around. It was one of those magical moments that could you could never forget. Then we left.
Now that story leads to this one...
It's about a year later the family and I are back in Kauai. I'm strolling along the beach in front of Marriott's Waiohai resort at Poipu, when I look up and see a local sitting there playing a guitar. Being a guitar player myself, I have to stop and listen. 'I can never pass up the opportunity to listen to live music, no matter what kind.' Anyway, he's playing a real good slack-key style and using some very interesting open tunings.
We start talking and exchange names, (his was Mike Young). I let him know that I play also. He's excited about that and asks me if I'd like to play along. I said sure. He tuned the guitar with a straight spanish-style tuning and handed it to me. I started playing some blues for a while, and he seemed to enjoy it. (What I enjoy most about playing is the connection that you make when sharing music with fellow musicians.) He said to me, "I love that stuff." I told him, "me too. But, I'd really like to learn to play slack-key like you." He said, "no problem, it's all in the tuning." I handed the guitar back to him so he could tune it and show me some stuff.
He tuned it up with a strange tuning and handed it back to me. I said, "what should I do?" He said "you know... just play. Let the guitar show you what to do." I'm thinking to myself, some technique would be nice about now. So I start messing around anyway. Soon after, I found some chords and a couple of scales, and there I am playing. It was very cool... It really was a blast.
Over the course of the next few of days I made sure to keep plenty of room in my schedule to go hang out with Mike. He showed me about three or four more different tunings to experiment with. I just kept playing around with them till I felt comfortable.
He had gone away for awhile, but when he came back he seemed to be impressed with how well I was doing. He asked, "hey, what tuning is that?" I guess that I was putting my own non-Polynesian-blues-laden influence on it. I told him it was the first one he had shown me. After a short pause to listen to what I was playing, he smiled and said, "you're getting it."
