| David "Feet" Rogers | |
| Birth Date: | February 14, 1935 |
| Birth Place: | Hawaii |
| Death Place: | Hawaii |
| Genre: | Traditional Hawaiian Music |
| Instrument: | Lap Steel Guitar, Rickenbacher Post-War BD6 |
| Past Member Of: | Sons of Hawaii, Maile Serenaders |
David "Feet" Rogers was a Hawaiian lap steel guitar player and inductee into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 2019.[1]
He was born on February 14, 1935 and grew up on the island of Oʻahu in the neighborhood of Kalihi.
Rogers's father was the Hawaiian steel guitarist George "Pops" Rogers,[2] and his uncle was the well known Benny Rogers, who played steel guitar for Genoa Keawe. Furthermore, Rogers's mentor was David Keli'i, the steel guitar player for the Hawaii Calls radio program.
Rogers style incorporated single note lines/melodies and oftentimes played his melodic lines all in harmonics/chimes. Rogers primarily played in his preferred D Major Triad tuning, choosing to focus on traditional Hawaiian music, rather than the swing oriented "Waikiki" style many of his contemporaries gravitated towards.
An original member of the Sons of Hawaii[3] band, featuring Gabby Pahinui on Slack Key Guitar, Eddie Kamae on Ukulele, and Joe Marshall on Upright Bass, Rogers left an undeniable impact with his signature fingerprint on the music of Hawai'i, forever being documented as part of grassroots traditional Hawaiian music DNA in many recordings. Eddie Kamae said that the steel enhanced the natural beauty of their music, made it distinctive at a time when steel was no longer popular. Rogers's music was a simple pure Hawaiian style always delicately played and beautifully expressed.
Other than music, Rogers worked as a merchant marine based out of Honolulu. Sons of Hawaii did not perform when "Feet", a merchant seaman, was not in town, so great was their respect for his contribution to their sound.
In the documentary, "The History of the Sons of Hawaii", Fred Lundt says the following about his experience with Feet:
"I was first inspired to play the steel guitar after listening to Feet. I heard Feet many, many years ago, about 1960. The Sons of Hawai'i was always a big influence on me, and I always wanted to learn the steel but it took me about 15-20 years to get around to it. Then one night I was down at the Blaisdell Hotel and I saw [the Sons of Hawai'i] playing. I went up after the performance and introduced myself to Feet. I told Feet that I was trying to learn the steel and he immediately befriended me and we started hanging out together and became good friends. Maybe I should've in retrospect, tried to learn more from Feet. But what I learned was more of an attitude towards music, which is a, a very subtle respect for the moment as it goes by and the sound that you make in that moment. I mean the steel player's job is really to the fill holes in the music. That's the steel player's job in most Hawaiian music. The steel player's job is NOT to back up the vocalist, it's NOT to play tons of stuff during the verse. It's to come in and fill, fill, fill. And "filling" is an art, and Feet had it."
David "Feet" Rogers came from a family of Hawaiian musicians.
Rogers's "unusual" D major tuning was only played by his family.
"How we tune the steel," he said, "is kind of like a chant or a family song, you know. It belongs to us, and we have to take care of it, or else it will change like everything else. It's just like my steel, too. It belongs to my father, and I never played one that has the same sound."
When one begins to look more closely at the most significant bands of the Hawaiian renaissance, in fact, the steel guitar never entirely disappeared. On the landmark Sons of Hawaii records, it is actually a featured component; however, it sounds quite different from the style heard more commonly in those days on Hawaii Calls.
When the band first formed as a 'ukulele, bass, and slack key guitar trio in 1960, the members quickly acknowledged the need for a steel player. The bass player [Joe Marshall] knew the perfect candidate, David "Feet" Rogers.
What Rogers brought to the Sons of Hawaii recordings was his almost minimalist approach.
As [Eddie] Kamae and his biographer reflected, "There is a busy, flashy way of playing steel that tries to fill each measure with as many notes as possible. Feet's music was the opposite of that. He had no desire to draw attention upon himself or be the star. He played with reserve and understatement, with an exquisite purity of tone.
[Feet's] playing and his philosophical approach perfectly suited the accompaniment of Pahinui's slack key picking and ipu-pahu rhythms, and the exquisite subtleties of their vocal performances.
One observer remarked, "The inclusion of the steel guitar at a time when it was no longer popular among the Hawaiian groups was what Kamae wanted." Kamae simply stated, "Hawaiian music without the steel is not really Hawaiian music."
In the documentary, "The History of the Sons of Hawaii", Moe Keale says the following about Rogers's playing:
"It's the touch, it's the feel that he had. That's the difference that separated him from everybody else in the world. We had guys...Jerry Byrd, all these guys from Nashville, they'd come to Hawai'i and the very first thing they do is seek out the Sons of Hawaii because they want to go hear Feet and they go [makes a shocked facial expression] 'I don't believe this'...you know, because he did stuff with the steel that nobody else has. And what I gotta stress is that he was a perfect example of a musician that played with his heart. He was a perfect example."
Rogers died from cancer on October 7, 1983 at the age of 48.[4]
In the documentary, "The History of the Sons of Hawaii", Eddie Kamae recounts the last jam session with Feet:
"So we had the last jam session with him. He went till he couldn't move his fingers anymore. He was tired and wanted to sleep. So we all sort of got up and said our Aloha to him and that we'd see him later on...We had a good time even until the last moment, playing...I need to hear that sound, and when he passed on, I don't think I could ever hear that sound again...the way a soul speaks...when he plays, that's the way Feet is...his soul speaks."
Original Member of Sons of Hawaii[6]
Maile Serenaders