Stephen Inglis will evoke the spirits of the Grateful Dead, December 30 in Kihei

While the legendary San Francisco rock band the Grateful Dead never performed on Maui, Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning guitarist Stephen Inglis will evoke the band's spirit on Dec. 30, when his group, the Stephen Inglis Project, recreates the Dead's 1978 "Closing of Winterland" New Year's Eve concert in its entirety on the eve of its 45th Anniversary.

The open-air concert at the Kihei Charter School will feature 27 songs performed over three sets, opening with "Sugar Magnolia" and closing with the encore of the traditional "And We Bid You Goodnight." Along the way, the Project will cover such classics as "Fire on the Mountain," "Friend of the Devil," "Playin' in the Band," "Sunshine Daydream," "Dark Star," and "Wharf Rat."

"It's more song for song rather than note for note," Inglis explained about the ambitious undertaking. "The Dead were famous for never playing anything the same way twice, kind of jazz improv, so we're kind of honoring the vibe of the era."

With Inglis on lead guitar and vocals, the Project includes Eric Petersen on bass and vocals, Steven Howells on drums, Alan Okuye on keyboards, vocalist Ginai Hill, and Todd Yukumoto on saxophone.

Inglis last played on Maui in July at George Kahumoku Jr.'s Slack Key Show. He performed in June at the 32nd annual Ki Ho'alu Festival at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, and in 2020, he took part in a virtual concert to help raise funds to build the Kalaupapa Memorial on Molokai.

A lifelong Deadhead, Inglis has a long connection with the iconic band. "When I was 16, my older brother turned me on to the band, and I went down the rabbit hole and never looked back," he recalled.

The lead guitarist in House of Spirits, an ensemble headed up by Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann in the 1990s, in May Kreutzmann sat in with the Project's "Lucky 7" Dead tribute concert on Kauai, and in September, the drummer invited Inglis to be part of his band for two "Grateful Mantra" shows.

"The two of us go back to I played with him in the late '90s in a band," he noted. "Then he sat in with us for a couple songs on his birthday this year on Kauai."

Born and raised on Oahu, it wasn't until he spent time in California that he took up playing Hawaiian slack key guitar. "I started electric guitar when I was 14 and then in my late 20s I really got into studying ki ho'alu, but I grew up with Hawaiian music," he recalled.

A Grammy nominee for his song "Redwood Slack Key," featured on "Hawaiian Slack Key Kings: Master Series, Vol. 2," he won a Hoku award for the album "Waimaka Helelei," collaborating with Hawaiian music icon Dennis Kamakahi. Discovering a shared connection with Kalaupapa, Kamakahi became a kind of mentor to Inglis. "I feel incredibly blessed to have had the time to study with him, and do the album and tour as well," he said.

In 2018, he translated his love for the Grateful Dead, releasing "Cut the Dead Some Slack," a novel approach to the music of the band played slack key style. All About Jazz praised: "the album beckons to both Deadheads and music lovers in general as an enlightening route to deeper appreciation of this music's subtle attractions."

"I play a lot of solo gigs and the songs just naturally worked themselves into the repertoire," he said. "It is really fun to take them and not just use the slack key tuning, but impart the Hawaiian vamps and the essence of ki ho'alu. It works really well in a lot of styles while still honoring the tradition."

Inglis' previous albums include "Soul Sound Slack," which included "Maui Serenade," and "Slacking on Dylan," where he opened up new territory for slack key interpreting Bob Dylan songs, which won him a Hawaii Music Award.

Getting ready to pay homage to the Grateful Dead in Kihei, Inglis suggested their music is timeless. "The music will be here long after anybody who was in the band is gone. They created their own form of American music and took a jazz approach to playing rock and roll. They started with formlessness, but it became this cohesive thing, and it was kind of the perfect storm at just the right time and the place. Now a lot of their songs are like standards in the jam band world."

Hawai'i Winterland: 'A Grateful Dead Experience with the Stephen Inglis Project is presented at the Kihei Charter School on Dec. 30 from 5 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $62.50 and $57.50, available at www.tickettailor.com.