GENIAL HAWAIIANS   GSK1005

Our latest cd "Genial Hawaiians" is now ready and includes all 12 recordings by Jim & Bob , also known as the Genial Hawaiians ( and some other less well known monikers too, like the Crooning Guitarists for example!) ...plus all 12 recordings by George Ku's Paradise Islanders. The latter feature the beautiful steel playing of Charlie Opunui .

We were fortunate to have our good friend Cyril LeFebvre write most of the notes for us , and the 32 page booklet also includes an introduction from Michael Messer plus contributions from acknowledged experts John Marsden, Stacy Phillips and Bob Brozman. Renowned researcher John Troutman was a huge help with tracking down long-lost documents ...look out for John's forthcoming  book on the history of the Hawaiian steel guitar in 2014. We 're delighted to welcome Martin Wheatley to the Grass Skirted team too ...fascinating pieces from Martin on pitch correction of the original 78s and the tunings employed by Bob Pauole and Charles Opunui.

As with our other Grass Skirt releases Robert Armstrong and Patty Graves are responsible for the beautiful cover design , and another Grass Skirt new girl, Anne Barcat, did an outstanding job with designing the booklet for us .

As usual Ted Kendall was our remastering expert !

Unfortunately photos of George Ku with his Paradise Islanders are very hard to find. This one we discovered in a Washington newspaper ...our attempts to get a better copy proved fruitless sadly.  George stands far left, Opunui seated, presumably the others are Kulaniakea and Chang but that's not confirmed