In the world of music, the name Roy Smeck might not get all the attention that it truly deserves. However, when speaking with someone who knows their Hawaiian music, he’s recognized as a master, and one of the great performers of all time. Hawaii is a fascinating place, where Polynesian, Japanese, European-descended, and other cultures come together to make for an unusual place. It’s a place that’s also under constant change, where new people come in, with new influences, all the time.
Even the influx of tourists, coming to enjoy the luxury hotels Hawaii offers, and called by the promise of the beach, have an effect on things. In fact, it could be said that a lot of the popular music is deeply influenced by the presence of guests on the island. Traditional sounds merge with the sounds the tourists want to hear, and this produces hybrids that eventually become known as specifically Hawaiian.
Roy Smeck was a master at this. His instruments of choice were the ukulele and the Hawaiian banjo, although he was a master of many strings. These could produce sounds that were lovely to the ear, and also made the guests happy. It was his performance style that really grabbed their attention, though, when he did the duck walk before anyone else, and learned how to make people happy.
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