With big dreams and a modest budget, the first Gabby Pahinui Waimanalo Kanikapila - from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Waimanalo Beach Park - is envisioned as a celebration to keep the legacy of the fabled "Pops" Pahinui alive.

It's also shaping up as a gathering of musical giants - masters from the past, a few newbies - with country-style informality.

"I want to bring back the memories of those backyard jams in Waimanalo," said Cyril Pahinui, 58, one of the ki ho'alu wizard's sons, who was a Grammy Award nominee as well as a Na Hoku Hanohano Award winner this year.

"I was a teenager when Daddy passed on, at age 59," said Pahinui of his pioneering musician father, perhaps the icon for slack-key guitar and laid-back Island-style backyard music.

"Right now, I am in the position to entertain and teach; I know what Daddy went through in his life and I feel like I get chance to live a little longer. I know Daddy's looking on at me, so I feel that it's important to continue Daddy's legacy for younger musicians to pick up the tradition," Pahinui said.

Pahinui is recruiting his siblings, his 'ohana and the Waimanalo community to participate in the kanikapila, the Hawaiian word for "let's-play-music." The Pahinui Hawaiian Band, an ensemble uniting the Pahinui brothers and sisters, in song and dance, is emerging as the "aha" moment of the festival. Even at press time, Cyril Pahinui was tweaking the roster of who'll play and when.

The lineup includes a rainbow of artists, representing multigenerations and styles, from Melveen Leed to Jerry Santos, from Dennis and David (father and son) Kamakahi to Pali, from The Makaha Sons to Roland Cazimero, from Bill Kaiwa to the Genoa Keawe 'ohana featuring Pomaikai and Gary Aiko, from Nina Keali'iwahamana to the Jesse Kalima 'ohana.

'A BACKYARD JAM'

Milton Lau, organizer of the Aug. 17 Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival in Kapi'olani Park, is assisting Pahinui in logistics, aiming for a timetable of musicians. But, he chuckles, it's going to hang loose, que sera sera.

"It'll be very much of a backyard jam," said Lau, who personally favors a structured timetable and fixed lineups.

"I know many musicians are going to show; when is the question. If there's an artist, he'll get up and perform. Could be that the early guy works a long time."

At last count, he said there were 18 acts committed, but no assigned times.

"It's a gamble," Pahinui said of the task and cost of staging an untested music event, hitched to fond and familiar recollections of a kinder and gentler past.

"I hope at least 500 show up, but we need as many as 1,000 to 2,000 to help pay for expenses."

There's been a surge of interest, he said, but why not? "Pops" Pahinui was the master musician who influenced and inspired a younger generation of Hawaiian troupers to follow his path of sharing, strumming and singing back in the 1970s.

"I feel so good; a lot of my dad's friends, who are still living today, have come up to me to tell me what a wonderful thing to do - to bring back the memories," said Pahinui. "My peers, too, are happy to participate. If this thing takes off, it could be a Hawaiian Woodstock."

Woodstock, of course, was that mammoth splash of the 1960s counterculture music that defined a generation immersed in song and spirit -with some tangled memories. Waimanalo will be a lot milder and modest, of course, but with its own Island-style spin on that generation that helped shape the path of Island music.

Pahinui advocates a no-booze and drug-free environment, since the gathering will also be family-friendly, with crafts and food booths, in addition to the music. No beer, please - even if the suds were part of the fuel that made "Pops" what he was.

"To bring the focus back to Waimanalo, and on somebody like 'Pops' who made Waimanalo a significant gathering place, is the way to go," said Palani Vaughan, whose Hawaiian music career was spawned in the heyday of Gabby Pahinui's strumming. He's definitely among the singers and strummers this weekend, having jammed with the Pahinui clan at the Waimanalo home in the 1970s.

"As Cyril relates to me, honoring his dad is a very good thing," said Vaughan. "I told him, count me in."

WAIMANALO ROOTS

Pahinui and his family had been longtime homestead residents in Waimanalo, a country community of simple pleasures.

Musicians - Vaughan included - frequently gathered at the Pahinui home to jam, commonly on Sundays, to indulge in kanikapila mostly for 'ohana and friends. The impromptu backyard sessions would focus on "Pops" and sons Cyril, Martin and Bla, but with the likes of Vaughan, Leland "Atta" Isaacs, and Peter Moon sitting in.

Since Moon has had health issues in recent years and is in a care facility, he will be represented by his son, Peter Moon Jr., a budding 'ukulele stylist himself.

"Waimanalo has evolved," said Vaughan, who moved to the rural sector about nine years ago. "There are still homestead homes; and a lot of Hawaiians have moved in. Across the way, in the area I live, there are homes that go for $1.7 (million) to $2.6 million - a stark contrast. But Waimanalo is a significant gathering place (for the kanikapila)."

Pahinui recalls the dedication of the Waimanalo pavilion, in 1980, to commemorate Gabby Pahinui, perhaps the area's most widely known resident, when Frank F. Fasi was mayor of Honolulu.

"There was a Gabby Pahinui slack-key concert after the dedication; that's the spirit we want to keep alive," said Pahinui.

"Pops" was a simple and humble steel guitarist before learning the intricacies of Hawaiian slack-key guitar.

"I play from the heart," he once said, and indeed, he spoke through his fingers. His formal name was Charles Philip Pahinui, but he was "Pops" to many folks. He had worked on a pick-and shovel-crew for the City and County, until an injury halted his daytime career.

He died Oct. 13, 1980.

UNOFFICIAL MAYOR

"For Gabby, it's been a series of evolutions," said Jacqueline "Skylark" Rossetti, a longtime radio personality, Pahinui family friend and Hawaiiana expert. "He played steel guitar in the 1930s, and had to wear monkey suits (tuxedos), you know, with the cardboard in front; he played music at the Alexander Young Hotel's rooftop garden. And he had 'gabardine' hair (a firm texture) - that's how he got his nickname."

Pahinui took the music to the backyard and that was his calling, said Skylark.

"We all used to clamor around, hang out - just to see and hear him play ... slack-key, by then," she said. "He had a raspy voice that shared falsetto background sounds that was magical for the period. The gathering ... kanikapila was good fun for the ears. And Gabby became a folk hero - he helped us understand that it was cool to hear Hawaiian music."

Skylark, who is co-emceeing the Pahinui kanikapila with Kimo Kahoano, said, "I referred him to him as the mayor of Waimanalo. So this event is great to remind Waimanalo of this man, who gave so much to the people through his music."

IN THE BEGINNING

Since Cyril Pahinui retired from his City & County job in 2000, he has mixed his hobby with his passion- and made a career out of his music. He blends tours - Neighbor Islands, the Mainland, abroad - with teaching guitar, and maintains residency in both Hilo on the Big Island and in Waikele on O'ahu.

He also remarried after his wife, Charmaine, died in 2006. His new wife, Chelle, teaches at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo and also helps facilitate most of her husband's music-playing and teaching, shaping the hobby into a livelihood since his retirement.

"She is an Australian and the publisher of Humu Mo'olelo, the hula magazine," Pahinui said of his spouse. "We just made one year (of marriage), and she's great in writing grants. We met (in Hilo) when I was doing slack-key workshops. She's the one who got me going, helping me change my life and getting me in the right direction."

The Pahinuis were able to get a few sponsors for the festivities and the thrust is to think small, at least for the first year, he said.

"But I don't know what small is," he said.

"Food vendors ask me, for how many people should they cook, and I say 500, but who knows?" said Pahinui.

"All my entertainer friends want to help, for free; we've been selling T-shirts to raise funds, and the shirts are bringing in some money. I want to pay the performers $50 each, for gas money, and we'll toss in a meal ticket and a T-shirt, but I didn't know how expensive insurance can be - $5,000 - and OHA (the Office of Hawaiian Affairs) has helped big time. But when you do an event like this, you have to get the place for three days - one to set up, one for program day, one for cleanup - so it's a learning experience. My wife is the one who took me to the City & County for permits, and that's how it all started. The mayor's office has helped, too."

Mayor Mufi Hannemann has agreed to show up in the morning hour for the pre-show festivities, offering his seal of approval and personal support.

FUTURE ASPIRATIONS

Pahinui hopes the event will evolve into an annual jam. He first wanted to stage it to coincide with his father's birthday, April 22, but planning and sponsorship delays pushed back the event till summer.

"Maybe we'll change the time next year, or do it again in the summer," he said.

One thing is certain, however. Pahinui is adamant about sharing his own strumming skills with anyone young or old who may be eager to learn, through periodic workshops he stages when he's not teaching in Hilo.

He remembered some nervous times, when "Pops" scolded him for not paying attention during small-kid-time lessons.

"Sometimes, he made me so scared - I don't want to do that with my students," said Pahinui.

"But I learned a lot from Daddy, and people like Atta (Leland 'Atta' Isaacs) and Sonny (Sonny Chillingworth)," he said.

"I want to share with my students, not keep secrets. If you don't share and they don't carry on, (ki ho'alu) will die," he said.