Dancing Cat Records Is Preserving the Masters of Slack Key

The songs on George Kuo’s Kiho‘alu: Stories in Song, Vol. 2 were recorded in the ’90s and early 2000s but weren’t released until 2026. Photo: Kim Taylor Reece

For more than 40 years, Dancing Cat Records has produced dozens of slack key guitar recordings by such renowned musicians as Cyril Pahinui, Ledward Kaapana, Keola Beamer and Raymond Kāne. Of 39 original recordings, “there were a lot that have been found in the archives that haven’t been released yet,” says Hugo Obori, who manages the catalog.

Dancing Cat is set on changing that. Last year, the California record company released Dennis Kamakahi’s Slack Key Heaven, with George Kuo’s Kiho‘alu: Stories in Song, Vol. 2 coming out earlier this year.

Dancing Cat Records was founded in 1983 by late solo pianist George Winston to document and preserve the art of slack key. Winston, who sold more than 15 million albums worldwide during his 50-year career, had been a fan of the art form since the 1970s when he discovered a Gabby Pahinui album at Tower Records.

His goal was to preserve the songs and each musician’s unique style, especially when many of the artists were live performers who had never recorded their music professionally. “A big thing for him was trying to record slack key in a professional studio setting, but in the most pure way possible,” Obori says. That meant with minimal extra instrumentation, unlike other recordings of the time that featured a full band.

Because Winston and many of the artists have since passed away, it’s important to “help with the preservation of it, that this music keeps living beyond George Winston,” Obori says, “and also for new people to see more of a purely authentic part of Hawaiian culture … how the artists intended it to be.”

lnk.to/hawaiianslackkey, @hawaiianslackkey

Katrina Valcourt is the executive editor of HONOLULU Magazine.