Uncle Kevin Brown & Anthony Pfluke
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In 2023, we captured a talk-story between Anthony Pfluke and Kevin Brown as part of Anthony's public art project as well as our collaborative Hui Mo‘olelo program with Hale Hōʻikeʻike at the Bailey House/ Maui Historical Society and the County of Maui. In 2024, professional artists from across the globe submitted proposals to translate this story as a work of public art. Upon selection by a community panel, artist Richard O'Connor and his team at Ace & Son Moving Picture Co. entered a period of project development to meet the storytellers, learn more about the context of their story, and infuse the evolving design with their feedback.
LISTEN: • Full Recording HERE • Excerpt HERE On April 27, 2024, this animated film short was unveiled at the 2024 Hui Mo‘olelo Film Festival in Kīhei for a packed house. |
Excerpt from Uncle's Story
But my dad never played slack-key. He always played standard tune. As I got into high school, I got introduced to slack-key. It was because I cut my math class that day, my first year, my freshman year. You can scratch that out though. Baldwin High School I went to. I hid in the courtyard, they got some big banyan trees, I used to hide in the crevice of the tree – out comes a teacher from his classroom, in the back of him is his students, and he’s holding his guitar. I’m trying to go as deep as I can in the crevice of the tree so he don’t see me, but he saw me. He just looked at me, he passed, he went further down. The kids all sit on the ground and he started playing for them. Hey, I thought - this is not The Beatles. It’s not the Young Rascals. It’s not the kind of music I’m used to hearing. So I come out of the tree and I listen and wow it was beautiful. The bell rang, the kids left. He passed me and I stopped him and said “Excuse me, what kind of the music you just played?” He said “oh it’s old Hawaiian music called slack-key”. And I said “hey you can teach me?” Just like that, out of the blue - “you can teach me?” He just looked at me, he said “I’ll teach you only if you have one guitar”. I didn’t. My father had one, but I wanted to learn so I go, “oh I have one at home”. So he said, “follow me to my classroom”. So I sat down. He started strumming. It was taro patch tuning. He starts strumming strumming. He gives me the guitar and tell me, “ok now you strum and you listen but you don’t ask me anything”. So I strummed the guitar, it was most beautiful tuning I ever heard. I told him, “so what’s my first lesson?” “Keep strumming”, he says. I strum. “So what’s my first lesson?” “Keep strumming”, he says. I strum. “So what’s my first lesson?” He walks over and turns all the keys, all the 6 keys, he just turn’m. “Your first lesson now: Remembered what you was playing?” I said ya. “Tune the guitar back”. But in my head, because I strummed it several times, it was in my head. I took the keys, and I went, I turned all 6 and I tuned it back at once. Then I looked at him, “so what’s my first lesson?”. He looked at me never said anything and he tell me “you go home now, you grab your guitar, and you tune your guitar to this”. And I left him and I was like - I’m home at 230pm. My father is home at 430pm. And I cannot touch his guitar. I’m not allowed. So I’m the only one at home. I go in his room, it’s under is bed. Pull’m up. I lift it up. And it’s standard and I tune it down to slack. And I just strum, I strum. Until I hear my father’s truck coming up the road. I tune it back to standard, put it back under the bed again. Make a long story short, for 4 years, I snuck into my father’s room just because I wanted to learn so bad. Then my senior year, my father says “hey boy, what you like for graduation?” I told him “I would like a guitar”. He said, “I cannot buy you the guitar, that’s too expensive, I’ll buy you something else, I gotta buy something for the others, plus you don’t know how to play”. I told him, “hey dad, in school I used to practice on my teacher’s guitar and he taught me how to play slack-key”. His eyes came like half a dollars: “you know how to play slack key?” I said “ya dad, I practice on my teacher’s guitar at school”. He tells me “go in my bedroom, under the bed, you bring my guitar to me”. So I go under the bed and bring it back to him. I tell him, “But Dad, I gotta tune that”. “Ya, go ahead, tune the guitar, tune to slack-key”, he says. The first song I played for my father was Ulupalakua. I did instrumentals, slack-key and it’s the first time I saw tears in my father’s eyes. So I went on with Ulupalakua. I stopped and he looked at me “You know boy, if I buy you this guitar, you have to make a promise to me. From this day, you never stop playing slack-key”. And I was like “oh ya dad, I promise!”. it was such a, it was kept so much a secret, that the tunings was not revealed. Everybody that played, never showed it.
Project Development
This is a season of storytelling. A time to share the tales from our kupuna and the legends our mo‘opuna will tell.
Meet the Storytellers
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Youth Task Force meeting
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‘Ōlelo No‘eau consultation
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Project Timeline
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