The Blues was first classified as such in 1903 when W. Handy, a bandleader who had moved to Clarksdale, heard a black boy, barefoot and singing at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. He remarked that it was the strangest music he had ever heard. He fell in love instantly. The fateful meeting is now known as the birth date of the Blues in America. The Blues existed however, long before this classification. The Blues have a large influence derived from that of Hawaiian music. The introduction of the steel guitar to America occurred at the 1912 Broadway show Birds of Paradise and the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915. In this show Hawaiian musicians and their unique methods of playing instruments were used. This kicked off a large selling of Hawaiian recordings.
America loved the sounds of the steel guitar and vocal recordings. Hawaiian steel guitar music in the 20's and 30's was a major, and very sophisticated genre that also encompassed the Jazz, and Blues. The best-known national player of that genre was Sol Hoopii, who "is without a doubt the most important and musically influential Hawaiian guitarists of this century. In addition to affecting all Hawaiian guitarists, Sol also had great influence on Western Swing and Country music. He was a great traditional Hawaiian stylist, but was the first to really blend jazz and blues with the Hawaiian steel sound." .
Sol was born on Oahu in 1902, and was one of twenty-one children. He began playing the ukulele at age three and moved on to the guitar at age six. Various artists such as Kaili, Kekuku, and Lau influenced his music. Sol was.
convinced that their success was linked with their tours of the mainland. And so at the age of seventeen, he snuck onto a ship headed to the mainland with two of his friends. Discovered as a stowaway he charmed his way into a passage fair with the delightful sounds of his music. Sol moved in the early 1920's from San Francisco to Los Angeles were he met with success after joining a trio.
