A song role is a production of IHurt Radio.

This is a song that Ray Anthony played many years ago.

See if you can remember the tune.

Just name that tune.

Aloha. The following is my interview with steel guitar ambassador, teacher, performer, and legend Alan Akaka.

Anybody know?

Portions of this interview appeared in our episode titled Kikila, which, if you haven't heard yet,

will give more context on the Hawaiian Islands and the lone-stringed instrument that originated there.

Hint, it's not the ukulele, but more on that later.

Matt Kinco also recorded it.

Alan's abilities are virtuosic.

He can play any instrument in the band,

and his office at the Kekula Mele School on Oahu is crammed full of them.

But the steel guitar is his passion.

It's a craft he spent a lifetime mastering.

By ear, he'll retune in the middle of a song. When I asked him

about older styles of playing, he approximated the sound by swapping his steel bar out for

a nut raiser to slide on the strings. Re-listening to our interview, one of the things that

stands out to me is how similar his musical origins are to Joseph

Kekuku, inventor of the Stoogart.

Both began as children, experimentally running objects up and down guitar strings.

You hear Alan drop a lot of names here, and that's because, from the time he was a teenager

...