• Genre: World
• Active: '20s, '30s

Biography

It is understood, without a doubt, that his first name was Bob, and his partner's first name was Jim. Collectively, it was Jim & Bob, better known as the Genial Hawaiians, a duo that recorded a series of sides in the '20s and '30s that were considered masterpieces of guitar playing. As for whether his surname was really Kaii, this is a subject scholars of Hawaiian music tend to argue over while slicing open pineapples. The duo's music has been reissued on various compilations of Hawaiian guitar or slide guitar, these efforts often picked out by reviewers as the best tracks. Some of the Jim & Bob masterworks include the heavenly "Chimes," an extremely swinging version of "St. Louis Blues," a masterful medley entitled "Songs of the Range," and one of the greatest versions of "Home on the Range" ever recorded.

These recordings represented aspects of a style of music that came about indirectly after the invention of the dobro, originally a metal-bodied guitar with anywhere from one to three cone resonators inside. The dobro was originally developed in order to be loud enough to cut through a big band, utilizing resonators that were something like speaker cones to project the sound of the instrument a bit farther than the normal guitar soundboard was capable of. The use of the loud banjo and more importantly the electric guitar made the dobro obsolete for this purpose within only a few years, but the instrument found a niche in several different styles of music nonetheless, and has been a steady presence in American musical styles ever since. Whether players are coming from bluegrass, Western swing, straight country, and Western or country blues, all acknowledge a credit to the Hawaiian guitarists, of which Kaii -- and his partner, good-old what's his name -- were masters. In the 1920s and '30s, Hawaiian guitarists Sol Hoopii and Kaii recorded tracks on the National tricone, a metal guitar whose three interlinked resonators gave it a dark, pungent sound. Of the two players, Hoopii had the more prominent career, inventing many tuning variations and picking on several different styles of lap steels, a solid-body electric instrument resembling a small gravestone for guitars.

Despite the fine records of Jim & Bob, the personal histories of the duo remain obscure. Kaii is considered so obscure that Hawaiian music scholars are apparently just guessing at his last name, while no such effort was even made for his partner, who remains known simply as "Jim." Dobro kingpin Stacy Phillips made this comment in an interview about his greatest influences, a typical reflection on this duo's mysterious identities: "My favorite resonator players are Bob Dunn, Buck Graves, and the guy Bob from Jim & Bob, the Genial Hawaiians." ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide