The instrument is played on the lap, and the guitarist plucks the cords instead of strumming them while running a steel bar over the neck. After inventing the Hawaiian steel guitar in his high school dorm, Kekuku became a world-touring guitar soloist. To music historian and curator John Troutman of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the steel guitar, an instrument invented by a Hawaiian teenager named Joseph Kekuku, isn’t just notable for being wildly popular, but for how it influenced various genres of American music. In 1916, 78 rpm records featuring an indigenous Hawaiian instrument outsold every other genre of music in the United States. mainland and the ukelele and steel guitar were introduced to the public at expositions, Hawaiian steel guitar music grew wildly popular. As Hawaiian steel guitarists started touring the U.S.

Redpath Chautauqua Collection, the University of Iowa LibrariesĪt the turn of the century, the lilting sound of the Hawaiian steel guitar captivated Americans fascinated with the tropical islands that were newly annexed by the U.S. Newspaper critics called him the “world’s greatest guitar soloist.” In 1904, Joseph Kekuku, inventor of the Hawaiian steel guitar, left Hawaii to perform on the American West Coast.

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