Hawaiian Holiday with Kimo West

Kimo West returns to the Shannon Center for his third annual holiday slack key concert!

Best known as long-time guitarist for the worldʻs most successful musical comedy artist, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Grammy Award nominated artist Kimo West is regarded as one of the world’s foremost “ki ho’alu” or Hawaiian “slack key” guitar artists.

This warm and engaging finger-picked guitar style has it’s roots in 1840’s Hawaii, when Mexican vaqueros first brought guitars to the Big Island of Hawaii. If you saw the Oscar-winning film, “The Decendants,” you have experienced this great acoustic guitar tradition.

Kimo is a 2008 winner of the Hawaii Music Awards and three- time Na Hoku Hanohano (the Hawaiian ‘Grammy’) nominee. He is also a two-time winner of the LA Treasures Award for his efforts in keeping this important acoustic guitar tradition alive. For his work with “Weird Al”, he has earned four Grammy’s and a Billboard #1 CD debut for 2015’s “Mandatory Fun”.

His numerous CDs feature many original compositions as well as inventive arrangements of the genreʻs classic repertoire. His recent release, “Guitar Stories” goes beyond slack key, exploring other genres like West African guitar, Middle Eastern Music and Americana. His latest CD, “Slackers In Paradise” features steel guitar legend, Ken Emerson.