The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues

It was there that he also discovered ki ho'alu or as it is more commonly called, "slack key" guitar, an old Hawaiian style of playing where the strings are loosened or "slacked" to different tunings, allowing the bass, chords and melody to be played simultaneously. Jim didn't concentrate on learning the standard riffs and songs but instead, developed his own slack key vocabulary which now defines his very unique approach to this great tradition.