Stephen Inglis

Stephen Inglis is a Hawaiian slack key guitarist and singer-songwriter born and raised in Honolulu. He plays ki ho'alu, the open-tuned fingerstyle tradition of the islands, and works both as an interpreter of that repertoire and as a songwriter who applies its tunings to material from well outside Hawaii. His composition Redwood Slack Key appeared on Hawaiian Slack Key Kings Volume 2 in 2009, a compilation that was nominated for a Grammy and won a Na Hoku Hanohano Award. His duet album with the late Hawaiian master Dennis Kamakahi, Waimaka Helelei, won a Na Hoku Hanohano Award, Hawaii's highest musical honor, in 2012, and the recording is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has been nominated for three Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in total, received the Ki Ho'alu Legacy Award in 2021 for his role in perpetuating the slack key tradition, and won a Hawaii Music Award for the album Slackin' on Dylan. A long strand of his work engages the Grateful Dead songbook: early in his career he formed a group with Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, and his double album Cut The Dead Some Slack renders Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir melodies at slack key's unhurried pace and in its open tunings. He continues to perform with musicians from that world, including pedal steel guitarist Barry Sless and keyboardist Rob Barraco of Phil Lesh and Friends, in the Skeleton Krewe Trio and an expanded touring quintet.

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