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CREATING COMMUNITY IN THE CONFINES OF “FINE BARBARIC THRILL”: JOSEPH KEKUKU, A HAWAIIAN MANHATTAN, AND THE INDIGENOUS SOUNDS OF MODERNITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

John W. Troutman*
Affiliation:
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Abstract

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Type
Forum: Indigenous Histories of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2015 

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References

NOTES

1 “Toots Paka's Hawaiians,” May 15, 1909, Variety.

2 A number of theories suggest who in the Islands “invented” the Hawaiian steel guitar in the nineteenth century. I entertain all of them in my forthcoming book on the history of the instrument but agree with the conclusion of most, that Kekuku is the individual most responsible for the instrument's development and refinement.

3 George S. Kanahele and John Berger, ed., Hawaiian Music & Musicians (Honolulu: Mutual Publishing Co., 2012), 826.

4 W. D. Adams, “The Popularity of Hawaiian Music and Musical Instruments” in The Hawaiian Annual, 1917, ed. Thomas G. Thrum (Honolulu: Thos. G. Thrum, 1917), 142–46, 143.

5 This phenomenon is embodied in the extraordinary number and success of the Oahu Publishing Company's Honolulu Conservatory franchises.

6 The first production line electric guitar was sold in 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In company (soon to be called the Electro String Instrument Corporation, and later, Rickenbacher. Bob Brozman, The History and Artistry of National Resonator Instruments (Anaheim Hills, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1998), 36.

7 Troutman, John W., “Steelin’ the Slide: Hawaiʻi and the Birth of the Blues Guitar,” Southern Cultures 19:1 (Spring 2013): 2652CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lorene Ruymar, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians (Anaheim Hills, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1996).

8 A number of monographs and biographies have recently expanded our understanding of the experiences of people of color laboring in the early twentieth century culture industries. See Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed., Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Louis Chude-Sokei, The Last ‘Darky’: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); Erin D. Chapman, Prove It On Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Camille F. Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008); Paul Garon, Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2014); David Gilbert, The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Paige A. McGinley, Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014); Karl Hagstrom Miller, Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); Priscilla Pena Ovalle, Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex, and Stardom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010); Karen Sotiropoulos, Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Troutman, Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879–1934 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009). For an outstanding study on the development of the U.S. music industry during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, see David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

9 Adria L. Imada, Aloha America: Hula Circuits Through the U.S. Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012).

10 For her relationship to the monarchy, see, for example, “The Tableaux,” The Daily Herald, November 29, 1886, 3.

11 Kanahele and Berger, Hawaiian Music and Musicians, 131.

12 “Editor at Large,” The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 21, 1944, 4.

13 “Gone to Frisco,” July 16, 1904, The Hawaiian Star, 5.

14 Paul E. Bierley, Hallelujah Trombone: The Story of Henry Fillmore (Westernville, OH: Integrity Press, 1982), 35.

15 I would like to thank one of Jones's relatives, Barbara Roddy, for her help in piecing together Jones's relationship with Paka. Correspondence with Barbara Roddy, February 25, 2010; April 18, 2013; “Under the Tents,” New York Clipper, May 20, 1905, 335.

16 See Brundage, Beyond Blackface; Chude Sokei, The Last ‘Darky’; Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams; Sotiropoulos, Staging Race.

17 See Troutman, Indian Blues, and Philip J. Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 183–223.

18 Bierley, Hallelujah Trombone, 38–39; “Notes from Wm Altherr's Dog and Pony Circus,” New York Clipper, November 18, 1905, 986.

19 See, for example, Advertisement, “The Atlas,” August 19, 1908, The Cheyenne Daily Leader, 5.

20 Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

21 “Hawaiian Stars in Musical Comedy,” May 17, 1910, The Hawaiian Gazette, 8.

22 Not every review of Kekuku's “The Rosary” performance was positive, though most were. Percy Hammond, the high-minded Chicago critic who wrote consistently disdainful reviews of the Paka troupe and their audiences, wrote that “they change the melody of ‘The Rosary’ into an imitation of somebody seasick, and their nauseous and discordant strains are much approved. Four handclaps win an encore.” Percy Hammond, “In Vaudeville and Elsewhere,” January 12, 1916, Chicago Daily Tribune, 13.

23 Ken Kapua, “Joseph Kekuku: The Originator of the Hawaiian Guitar,” August, 1933, B.M.G., 238.

24 “Practice and Patience All That is Necessary to Play Hawaiian Airs,” August 16, 1916, The Atlanta Constitution, 6.

25 “Hawaiian Music Made in Germany,” El Paso Herald, August 24, 1916, 12.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 “Advance List of Hawaiian Edison Records,” December 1909, Edison Phonograph Monthly, 28. Malcolm T. Rockwell, Hawaiian & Hawaiian Guitar Records, 1891–1960, cd-rom, 917.

29 “The Tableaux,” The Daily Herald, November 29, 1886, 3.

30 “Kue: The Hui Aloha Aina Anti-Annexation Petitions, 1897–1898,” http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/annexation/petition/pet800.html. On the significance of this petition, see Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

31 For a discussion of Tin Pan Alley's pseudo-Hawaiian movement, see Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008),186–87.

32 During their first session the troupe had also recorded “Maui Girl” by Kanaka Maoli Sylvester Kalama, and “Honolulu Tom Boy” by Kanaka Maoli composer Sonny Cunha. Cunha was one of the originators of this “hapa haole” (literally, half foreigner, half Hawaiian) genre. It combined Hawaiian and English language phrases and was first popular among Kānaka Maoli, although it soon captivated non-Hawaiians and led to the offensive pseudo-Hawaiian phenomenon. Kanahele and Berger, Hawaiian Music and Musicians, 114–16; Johnny Noble, “Hawaiian Musicians in the Jazz Era,” Paradise of the Pacific (Nov. 1943): 22–24.

33 Lucas, Paul F. Nakoa, “E Ola Mau Kakou I Ka ‘Olelo Makuahine: Hawaiian Language Policy and the Courts, The Hawaiian Journal of History 34 (2000): 128, 8.”Google Scholar

34 Malcolm T. Rockwell, Hawaiian & Hawaiian Guitar Records, 1891–1960, cd-rom, 917–20. These songs included “Aloha Oe,” “Waialae,” “Pulupe,” “Tomi Tomi,” “Kaowe Ake Kai,” “Lia Ika Wai Mapuna,” “Ahi Ahi Poakolu,” “Kamawae,” “Popoakalu,” “Liaika Wai Mapuna,” “Rain Tuahine,” “Lei Rose O Kawika,” “Moanikeala,” “Ko Maka Palupalu,” “Aw Auaula,” “He Lei No Kaieulani,” “Hula O Kilauea,” “Adios Kealoha,” “Lei Ohaoha,” “Lei Aloha,” “Lanihuli,” “Hoo Mau,” “He Inoa No Waipio,” “Kalai O Pua (dedicated to King Kalākaua),” “Aloha No Mau I Ko Maka,” “Poli Pumehana,” “Halona,” “Hoʻomanaʻo Oe A Hiki Oe,” “Akahi Hoi” (Kalākaua), “Lei Awapuhi,” “KoMaka Palupalu,” “Aw Aiaula,” “Aloha No Mau I Ko Maka,” “Halona,” “Kai Malino,” Ipu Lei Manu,” “Paahana,” and “Ua Like No A Like.”

35 Samoan Hawaiian steel guitarist Tau Moe recounted listening to a wax cylinder featuring Kekuku in 1918, while living on O'ahu. Tau Moe to Lorene and Art Ruymar, August 26, 1990, in Lorene Ruymar, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar, 21.

36 “Hoots! Toots Paka and July in Town,” June 14, 1912, The Hawaiian Gazette, 7.

37 According to the Pacific Commerical Advertiser, she spent a few months in Oʻahu in 1909 “in order that [she] could learn something of the Hawaiian music and dances at first-hand. She studied the music carefully, and acquired an intimate knowledge of the hula, and became accomplished dancer.” “Hawaiian Singers Make Big Hit on Broadway,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 17, 1910.

38 Grace Kingsley, “Says, Toots, ‘Thees Li'l Danze are Vur Much Many Li'l Danze,” May 24, 1912, Los Angeles Times, III4. It is unclear whether or not she trained with a kumu hula (hula master). Hula Kui were the dances associated with mele composed with or for the accompaniment of guitars, ʻukuleles, and other stringed instruments. ʻPūili, and kālaʻau refer to split bamboo rattles/sticks and hard wood rhythm sticks, accordingly. ʻŌlapa, or dancers, use both to accompany oli, or chants.

39 Grace Kingsley, “Says, Toots, ‘Thees Li'l Danze are Vur Much Many Li'l Danze,” May 24, 1912, Los Angeles Times, III4. Hula ‘ala'apapa is lesser-known hula genre of the Kamehameha dynasty that predates the modern hula kui of the Kalakaua era. Amy K. Stillman, Sacred Hula: The Hula Ala'apapa in Historical Perspective. Bulletin in Anthropology (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1998), 8.

40 “Hawaiian Boys Who Left Islands for Outside World are ‘Making Good’ All Over Mainland,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, January 4, 1913, 5.

41 Advertisement, Variety, October 17, 1908, vol. XII, no. 6, p. 23.

42 Jean S. MacKenzie, Tandy, Norfolk Island, Australia: Island Heritage Limited, 1975, 45–46.

43 “Hawaiians on the Mainland do Well,” August 30, 1912, The Hawaiian Gazette, 4.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 For another such example, only six months later, see “Hawaiian Boys Who Left Islands for Outside World are ‘Making Good’ All Over Mainland,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, January 4, 1913, 5.

47 The eighteen-month-old daughter of Aeko and his wife was named Momi. “Hawaiian Baby Christened,” March 14, 1912, New York Times, 11.

48 I argue in the forthcoming book, and in the following article, that Native Hawaiians inspired the development of the blues slide guitar technique. John W. Troutman, “Steelin’ the Slide.” On the first mass-produced electric guitar, see Bob Brozman, The History and Artistry of National Resonator Instruments (Anaheim Hills, CA: Centerstream Publishing, 1998), 36.