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Jim Kimo West: More Guitar Stories
by Mark Sullivan
Guitarist Jim Kimo West (aka Jim West) is probably best known as the guitarist in musical satirist “Weird Al" Yankovic's band. Anyone familiar with Yankovic's music knows that is an eclectic gig, but West is even more eclectic on his own. He jokingly describes this album--a sequel to Guitar Stories: Slack Key & Beyond (Westernmost Records, 2016)--as a “Slack Key, New Age, Jazz, Funk, Celtic, Americana and Indian Classical mashup." Crazy as that sounds, it is about right; West uses ...
read moreKimo West: Moku Maluhia - Peaceful Island
by Mark Sullivan
In addition to his regular gig as guitarist with musical parodist Weird Al Yankovic--which requires him to cover a wide variety of guitar styles--Kimo West is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar aficionado. His previous solo recording Guitar Stories (Westernmost Records, 2016) applied the finger-style playing technique with open tunings to an eclectic variety of material, accompanied by several supporting musicians. Here he stays closer to the slack-key tradition, playing solo with occasional support from shakuhachi flute and cello. Kimo's compositions are ...
read moreJim "Kimo" West: Guitar Stories: Slack Key & Beyond
by Mark Sullivan
Guitar Stories presents a lovely, diverse collection of music centered around Kimo West's composing and excellent guitar playing. West is a proponent of the Hawaiian slack key guitar style, a fingerstyle playing technique using various open tunings. He credits the name of the tuning used on each track, as well as including a list spelling out the full guitar tuning for each. So it's appropriate that the album opens with “Na Koa Moku O Keawe," a baritone guitar ...
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