Charles Kaipo Little Grass Shack (Jules Ah See)

[Bill Leff]

Last night I played a Hawaiian music gig for the first time in a long time and one of the tunes was Little Grass Shack. There was a singer/uke player who sang it and I accopanyed him along with a bass player. We played it in G and I used my Fender Stringmaster 8 string tuned to C6. I felt like I covered it pretty well but it was nothing to write home about. And before anyone mentions David Kelii's version in C6, I've heard it, studied it years ago, picked up a few things from it that I throw into my mix. It's a fabulous solo that's far beyond my abilities.

Today I decided to revisit Little Grass Shack and fired up Youtube and searched for the tune and found this:

https://youtu.be/f5VEen_TI_A?si=xd1P6-vBZaNxnHk4

Whoa! First thing was it's in C. Okay, but what about all those jazzy chords? I tried to play the V chord and could not get the voicing. I realized C6 is not working here. Then it dawned on me this has to be Jules Ah See. The tone, the chord stabs, the playfulness, the ease of execution. So I went to John Ely's ""Tuning of the Pros" page and found his E13 and tuned my six string Asher that I had on my lap to the first 6 strings of the tuning. Bingo! I was finding a lot of what he was playing.

That said, there are some passages towards the end that sound like C6 with open strings, like the D9 chord he uses.

Can I assume he played some of this on the C6 (C13 actually) neck and get on with my life

[Nic Neufeld]

Yes, I would totally buy that that is Jules. Album was released in 1962 (JAS died in 1960) but could have been recorded earlier and then the album compiled later. But if it isn't Jules it would be someone who studied his moves pretty closely!

Going to have to listen to the album a bit more, its one of his I don't have...

[Bill Leff]

Hi Nic!

Looking forward to what you think in terms of what tuning(s) were used on Little Grass Shack. I’m definitely hearing his E13 in most of it but there’s a few parts where it doesn’t seem to be workable in that tuning. If you disagree, I love to know how it could be done!

Could the answer lie with pedals?

[Michael Kiese]

Little Grass Shack is an old school tune where most of the chords are Dominant 7.

I'm familiar with that Charles Kaipo version.

What I hear is the steel player playing idiomatic dominant 7 language with chord voicings and inversions. C6 tuning can give you that dominant sound, so can B11 or E13.

The different tunings just make playing certain idiomatic things easier with tradeoffs.

Bottomline is that all these tunings would work to get that type of sound: C6, B11, C6/A7, E13. All the notes are there, it's your job to find them.

Bobby Ingano plays EVERYTHING on a 7 string C6 with a high G. He can find everything on it.

I think at the end of the day it's a futile task to mull over what tuning someone used because all that matters is if you can find that same sound on your tuning. The sound is there. You just have to find it.

[Bill Leff]

I beg to disagree. There’s particular phrases and voicings that lay out easier/better on a particular tuning, . You might be able to get close on most things but some are impossible. Most of the greats played in multiple tunings for that reason (Jerry Byrd for example).

No one tuning is better than the other. They each do certain things well. The reason I posted is to discuss this particular recording with the community and to get their feedback on what they thought about my observations. I wasn’t asking for advice and to be honest find it rather condescending.