Rickenbacher fry-pan
Seven strings. The round aluminum body the electric steel was born in. He prefers the old Rickenbacher horseshoe sound.
The story
From a hospital ʻukulele to the lap steel people call when the song needs a voice.
Bobby, Jimi, and his 7 string Frypan.
1952
Lānaʻi City
Born December 17, on Lānaʻi. The first seven years were on that island, before the family crossed the channel.
1959
Honolulu, and the hospital
They moved to Oʻahu when his father took a promotion in the Dole Pineapple office. Bobby had been born with polio, before a vaccine, and could not always keep his balance. The next years were in and out of Shriners Hospital.
There
An ʻukulele, from boredom
The family was already musical. With time on his hands he learned ʻukulele, and it came naturally. The steel guitar was still years away.
1970
Farrington, and Sleepwalk
He graduated from Farrington High playing blues and rock electric guitar in a band. Santo & Johnny’s “Sleepwalk” — a New York record, not a Waikīkī one — had already shown him what a steel could do to a melody.
1977
A yellow Volkswagen
Living in Makiki, riding with his brother Stanley, a cassette came on: the Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band, Gabby on steel, “Blue Hawaiian Moonlight.” That was the turn toward Hawaiian steel.
Market
Feet Rogers
Working at Tamashiro Market, he taught himself C6 by copying David “Feet” Rogers of the Sons of Hawaiʻi — not yet knowing Feet played a different tuning. Feet’s cousin Ronald Kanahele found him there. A stolen Bakelite changed hands in both directions, and so did a way of being. Feet’s lesson was not a book of licks.
A6
The extra string
Billy Hew Len’s A6 — low to high, C♯ E F♯ A C♯ E — would not fall under a C6. Months of trying, then the realization he still tells: it was the same idea as his C6 if he added a G above the high E.
2017
Off the clock
He retired from Tamashiro Market and joined the Taj Mahal Quintet. Folk, blues, rock, country, Hawaiian songs. At first he carried both a standard electric and the lap steel.
Now
ʻAiea Heights
Home is ʻAiea Heights on Oʻahu. He still records, still sits in, still plays the steel festivals, and he hands Feet’s advice to younger players without dressing it up.
