Story written by Jon Woodhouse For The Maui News
When he’s not playing lead guitar touring and recording with “Weird Al” Yankovic, Grammy winning musician Jim “Kimo” West pursues his love for Hawaiian slack key guitar.
Releasing several acclaimed slack key albums, including “Slack Key West,” “Moku Maluhia – Peaceful Island,” and “Na Lani O Maui – Maui Skies,” West performed at George Kahumoku, Jr.’s Slack Key Show on April 23 at the Napili Kai Beach Resort.
“I’ve played that show for over 10 years,” West says. “It’s the greatest place for slack key with a lovely, attentive audience. Everybody is there to hear that style of music. It’s not like you’re playing in a restaurant where everybody’s talking and eating. I’ve been really fortunate to have been on the roster for so many years.”
West became enamored with the Hawaiian guitar style while spending time in Hana.
“I got into slack key strictly for the love of it,” he explains. “I started living out in Hana back in the ’80s and I heard a lot of slack key mostly on albums. Probably the first album I heard was Gabby Pahinui’s ‘Brown Album.’ Then Sons of Hawaii and Raymond Kane. I just loved the vibe, and I’d always have cassettes in the car when I’d go back and forth from Hana to Kahului. Eventually, it became like a second career.”
Recording his first slack key album, “Coconut Hat,” in 1999, which featured delightful tracks like “‘Ulupalakua Sunset,” he held release parties on Maui and Oahu and met guitarist Ozzy Kotani. “He said, ‘Some of your stuff reminds me a bit of Keola Beamer.’ Once I checked out Keola’s solo records, I thought, this is really beautiful.”
Beginning with an acoustic guitar at 12, he soon graduated to rock. “Rock and roll has been in my blood since I was a teenager,” he notes.
Eventually hired by “Weird Al” Yankovic, West has played lead guitar with him for more than 40 years. “Al’s a very sweet guy,” he says. “It’s been really beautiful because Al doesn’t tour every year. When he’s not touring, he has given me time to have my second career with slack key.”
A prolific musician, he won a Grammy in 2021 for Best New Age album for “More Guitar Stories,” which he described as a “slack key, new age, jazz, funk, Celtic, Americana and Indian classical mashup.”
“A number of years ago, I decided since I have so many other influences, I would do an album that was more like slack key meets other genres,” he explains. “I did my first one called ‘Guitar Stories,’ and then a few years later, I did ‘More Guitar Stories.’ So it’s not really a Hawaiian record, but it does incorporate a lot of slack key techniques and tunings into the material.”
This story was written by Jon Woodhouse For The Maui News
