I got two collections of tab from what you would think are two very disparate places: Woody's Guitar Workshop from the Stairwell Serenade CD, and a collection of advanced slack key pieces by Oahu's Keola Beamer. Interestingly, not only do I find myself often in the same tunings, but playing many of the same hunks of riff. Keola leans more to the lyrical, Woody more to the raw, but the two styles share so much that I wondered about the roots and origins of both.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? When Missisippi-style blues and Hawaiian start treading the same path, it sure makes me wonder if there's more to it than I know.

Then again, have we ever seen Woody and Keola TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME?

Hmmmm...

On a more general question, I remember reading some interview with you where you described your musical interests as being centered, among other places, around the kind of musical "golden age" that happened in the 20's: Blues, jazz, calypso, Hawaiian, ragtime, and probably seven other genres I can't think of were all popular and happening at that time.

My theory on why this (and it's mine too, said Miss Anne Elk) is that when recordings of other people's music became widely available in the 20's, musicians(at least those with the IGS spirit) from around the world were playing disks from far-off places and saying "man, this is some crazy shit! I bet I can use that in my own playing!"

Some black Hawaiian guitar players in blues: Oscar Woods, Casey Bill Weldon ("the Hawaiian Guitar wizard"(!, Black Ace, Freddie Roulette (amazing!) Some Hawaiian musicians who played blues: Benny Nawahi, Sol Hoopii, Sam Ku West, David Burrows.....

Here's the final twist--a large percentage of the guitars that arrived in Mississppi at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, came from Mexico. Old Stellas were copies of Mexican guitars. Guitars came to Hawaii......from Mexico! Thanks to Spain, we are all playing guitars, thanks to the Arabs, thanks to the cavemen! And the little one-celled creatures, etc, etc....