Sol Hoopii

Sol Ho'opi'i (1902-1953) was perhaps the most famous Hawaiian steel guitarist of the twentieth century. The youngest of twenty-one children from Honolulu, Hawaii, he came to the mainland in 1919 as a stowaway on an ocean liner to San Francisco, California, and later began recording in Los Angeles. Sol Ho'opi'i's Novelty Trio often mixed jazz and blues with traditional Hawaiian music. The distinctively rhythmic slide techniques he invented later influenced country music steel guitarists.