‘Weird and eery chords’

Popularized by Native Hawaiian musicians between 1914 and the early 1920s, the Hawaiian steel guitar steadily attracted a constituency of British players, largely amateur but also containing a body of professional and semi-professionals. These were mainly male, typically young and drawn from the lower-middle and working classes. Early audiences often found the ‘strange’ beauty of the instrument, and Hawaiian music more widely, a form of ethnic novelty far preferable to the ‘noise’ of the African-American jazz that arrived alongside it. Steel guitar enjoyed particular popularity from the mid-1930s as British guitarists discovered the jazz and swing-influenced music of a new generation of Hawaiian players and its growing standing saw it, now often in electric form, penetrate a wide range of light and popular music. Its adoption helped democratize the social base of the British guitar community, and, in company with the plectrum guitar, anchor the guitar family more securely in British musical life

Amateur · Guitar · Jazz · Musical · Popular music · Popularity · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Music History and Culture · Theater, Performance, and Music History