Entertainment

Maui Steel Guitar Festival to feature Geri Valdriz

Serving as a Maui Family Court judge, Geri Valdriz put his Hawaiian steel guitar aside, feeling that the responsibilities of the bench left little room for performing.

"When I was a judge, I quit playing music," Valdriz explained. "When you're a judge, you cannot play. I did two terms, and then after my second term, I said, 'I'm going to step down and get back into playing music.' My whole life I was playing steel guitar, so now I can play with whoever I want to."

Happy to return to playing the instrument he loves, Valdriz, along with Alan Akaka, Bobby Ingano, Joel Katz, Ross Ka'a and Konapiliahi Lau, will play at the Maui Steel Guitar Festival on Saturday at The Shops at Wailea.

A regular at steel guitar festivals around the state, Valdriz enjoys helping perpetuate the instrument as an important Hawaiian music art form. "The whole purpose is to keep the steel guitar alive," he said. "I'm not trying to be famous or anything. I just want to do my part in keeping it alive."

One of the defining sounds of Hawaiian music, the steel guitar helped reshape popular music far beyond the islands.

"Kīkā kila is the word for steel guitar," he explained. "Kila means steel and kīkā is guitar."

Valdriz was playing slide guitar on Oahu in the 1970s before he gravitated to steel. He recalled reading in a magazine "a slide guitarist talking about how they were influenced by Hawaiian steel guitarists, so that's how I started to learn about the early Hawaiian steel guitar players."

It began in the late 19th century with Joseph Kekuku, who is widely credited with developing the technique that became the Hawaiian steel guitar. Kekuku's innovation spread through Hawaii and beyond.

"Hawaiians developed that style, and then country musicians and blues musicians took the lap steel," he said. "So it has a really interesting origin. The steel guitar mimics the voice. It's unlike any other instrument, and it's probably the most difficult instrument to play. That's why there are so few players."

Intrigued by the sound of the steel guitar, he began buying records and 78s, trying to mimic what he heard.

"I taught myself initially," he said. "Then I pestered the great steel guitar master, Jerry Byrd, and he took me on as one of his students. I studied with him for a while, and then I ended up moving to Maui and started to play with different people on Maui."

As part of his mission to keep the steel guitar alive, he hosts the Tuesday evening radio show "Hawaiian Steel" on Mana'o Radio. "Unfortunately, today it's not popular like slack key or 'ukulele," he noted. "So I try to keep it alive by playing, and I have my radio show. The purpose is to keep the steel guitar out there and hopefully the younger generation is going to come along and pick it up."

Broadcasting around the world, he sometimes hears from fans far beyond Hawaii. "Around the world, Hawaiian music is a steel guitar," he said. "I have listeners from England. They send me CDs of English steel guitar players, and I play them on my show."

Besides his radio show, he plays with the Kīkā Kila Band every Monday at Maui Coffee Attic, and on Thursday he plays for the hula show at The Shops at Wailea. In the past, he was a member of Ola Hou with Kevin Brown and Pekelo Cosma. "We played all of the Sons of Hawaii stuff," he said. He was also a member of the Maui Jam Band with Al Nip.

Releasing albums like "Ho'okani Pila," "Breath of Steel" and "Lap Steel Harmony," Valdriz has played on recordings by Kumu Hula Uluwehi Guerrero and Kanekoa, and most recently with the group Human Experience on the track "Kaupakalua."

Getting ready to join his steel guitar colleagues in Wailea, he said, "People from around the world want to play like us. When they come to Hawaii, that's the sound they want to get. I'm just fortunate that I was born and raised over here, and I understand how to get that sound. I think it's in the ocean, and in the air we're breathing."

The Maui Steel Guitar Festival will begin at 3 p.m. Saturday at The Shops at Wailea. Admission is free.