Kenton Robert Lopaka Emerson is a San Francisco bay area born/ Hawaiian island bred guitarist who covers many musical genres. He has played his special blend of Blues/Jazz Hawaiian guitar for 40 years and running..His original compositions and performances on ’Slack Key Guitar Vol 2’ (Palm Records) helped bring in the first ever 2005 GRAMMY award for Hawaiian music. ’KE’ most recently played on Donald Fagen’s 2007 GRAMMY winning "Morph the Cat" album.
Born into a musical family, Ken grew up with his fathers’ extensive record collection of jazz, swing, Hawaiian and world music styles. Turning up his large valve powered Console Grande stereo, Ken’s father Jack merrily spun everything from Alan Lomax field recordings to Louis Armstrong and vintage Hawaiian ’78 rpm records.
Hawaiian music runs a common thread throughout his family’s roots. His mandolin playing grandfather Ray Emerson lived in the islands beginning in 1917, and his Grand Uncle Ed played jazz saxophone on the famous Matson Liner ‘Malolo’ in the early to mid 1930’s. His mother Alice was a featured ukulele performer along with her twin sister Agnes at the 1939 world’s fair exhibition in San Francisco. The ukulele she played at that venue proved to be Ken’s first ‘guitar’ at age 7.
Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ken began playing guitar along with his older brothers and sister. He played the folk and blues songs of the early ‘60s, learning right hand fingerstyle techniques that led to his development as a fingerstyle picker.
“We all played the Leadbelly, Sippie Wallace, Woody Guthrie stuff, along with Dylan, Baez.”
With the explosion of the San Francisco sound of the mid- later ‘60’s Ken also immersed himself into rock and electric blues styles. He was particularly drawn to bottleneck and slide guitar, and used a harmonica to duplicate the sound.
In early 1968 Ken’s family moved to Hawaii. Absorbing the Hawaiian culture, Ken and his brother Phil began studying Hawaiian language and music. They learned to emulate the players of the 1920’s and ‘30s era by listening to vintage Hawaiian 78 rpm records, zeroing in on the jazz and blues styles of Sol Ho’opi’i and Sol K. Bright.
By the mid’70’s Ken and Phil were playing alongside such legendary performers as Gabby Pahinui, Genoa Keawe, Raymond Kane, Auntie Alice Namakelua, Sol K. Bright and George Ka’ainapau, and recorded and toured with Moe Keale.
In between his love of traditional Hawaiian music, Ken has played and/or toured with many luminaries in the musical world beyond Hawaii including Todd Rundgren, Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs, Jackson Browne, Donald Fagen, Dave Mason, Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, Graham Nash, San Francisco’s Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann, Pablo Cruise Band and The Rowan Brothers.
Dividing his time between Kaua’i and San Francisco, Ken plays many local venues and festivals and is a frequent visitor to the east coast of the United States as well as Europe and Asia.
"Emerson writes pieces that update the classic sounds of Hawaiian Slack Key guitar. His unaccompanied songs have an open, relaxing quality to them, moving forward in a gentle rhythm.."
Jessy Terry
Rolling Stone Magazine
"Ken Emerson’s style reflects the Hawaiian guitar’s grassroots origins of a century ago. He taps into classic jazz and blues influences as well as Latin styles, completing a cultural circle from the first vaquero guitarists through jazz steel guitar virtuoso Sol Ho’opii and into new unexplored musical territories"
Maryanne Cord
Hanaola Records
Ken and Papa George play ’Hotel St Blues’
Ken and Papa George play ’Broken Mirror’
Ken has played with some interesting musicians..