Jerry Byrd Ohana Zoom Call

[Michael Kiese]

Aloha Kakou!

It's my pleasure to share the following video with you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm0ZXr-u_aU

A while back, it came to my awareness that Jerry Byrd had 2 lives. Before Hawaii, and after Hawaii. He moved to Hawaii at the age of 52.

People who knew Jerry from his life on the mainland rarely crossed paths with people who knew Jerry from Hawaii, including Jerry's own daughters.

So I took it upon myself to find Luana Byrd (thanks to old posts on the forum), and I reached out to her.

My idea was to have Auntie Luana meet some Hawaiian Steel players that knew Jerry, including one of his star students, Casey Olsen.

Jerry always said he moved to Hawaii so that he could "Give it back to where he got it."

I set up a Zoom call between her, Bobby Ingano, Casey Olsen, and myself.

We enjoyed ourselves, and recorded the conversation for posterity and I put it up on YouTube.

Some steel guitars owned by some legends make an appearance.

Hope you like it.

Enjoy!

[Matthew Dawson]

Thanks for posting this. I appreciate the effort taken to gather these folks together and record their history. I definitely learned some new things. I’d recommend interviewing Alan Akaka if you do more of these (hope you do!). I’d love to hear more stories from Bobby and Casey as well. Nice work!

[Rick Aiello]

Very fun !!!

[Michael Kiese]

Thanks guys, glad you like it.

[Michael Kiese]

Thanks for posting this. I appreciate the effort taken to gather these folks together and record their history. I definitely learned some new things. I’d recommend interviewing Alan Akaka if you do more of these (hope you do!). I’d love to hear more stories from Bobby and Casey as well. Nice work!

Aloha Matthew,

I'll probably get around to Alan eventually, if he's willing. The thing is, Alan already has a lot of content on YouTube, and Troy Brenningmeyer already has a good interview of Alan up on YouTube.

I'm a bit more interested in hearing what some of the other guys from Hawaii have to say because they have much less of a YouTube presence.

It's just so much fun talking to Uncle Bobby and Uncle Casey. They're big gear heads. They can talk story for hours and hours about steel guitars, amps, players, etc.

Just good fun talking about everything that may be on their minds. The golden nuggets and "aha!" moments happen when the conversation trails off track, and they say something poignant related to a previous conversation.

Both Uncle Bobby and Uncle Casey made it clear to me that they want to do more Zoom calls, so the next one will probably be gear focused. They both have quite a collection.

Enjoy!

[Sebastian Müller]

That was so insightful, mahalo !

[Michael Kiese]

That was so insightful, mahalo !

Glad you liked it Sebastian, and mahalo for your comment on the video!

Enjoy!