extended history of the ukulele - skillsuccess.com · rajão, braguinha and viola d’aram didn’t...
TRANSCRIPT
Extended History of the Ukulelecopy 2012 Dan Scanlan
The Atlantic Ocean began to widen some 20 million years ago as the Earth distributed its lands globally Southwest of the Rock of Gibraltar off the coast of Morocco a hot spot grew on the oceanrsquos floor where the Earthrsquos hot liquid center began to ooze through a thin spot in its skin The ooze grew and coagulated ever larger until some seven million years ago a series of islands appeared bubbled and hardened above the surface of the sea
Meanwhile the Pacific Ocean was shrinking as the Americas drifted westward Hot spots emerged near the center of that ocean too and seven million years or so ago a series of islands began to bubble to the surface of the water an action that continues to build islands today
Millions of years later humans found these island groups mdash Madeira in the Atlantic and Hawaii in the
Two Hot Spots
Madeira Island
Hawaiian Islands
Pacific mdash and centuries after that their finding of one another would spawn the ukulele Embracing that history is the first step to Love Uke
Some historians believe that Phoenicians Romans and North Africans must have stumbled onto Madeira Island some 2000 years ago Others have suggested that Scandinavians approached it even earlier Maps from the 1300s seem to show the islands And therersquos a legend of two lovers who were stranded and died there But no humans were living on the islands in 1418 when Joatildeo Gonccedilalves Zarco a sea-faring explorer working for Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator found refuge from a storm at a small island he named Porto Santo ldquoHoly Portrdquo He didnrsquot see the larger neighboring island thru the mist Two years later he revisited saw the other island and named it ldquoMadeirardquo Portuguese for ldquowoodenrdquo because it was covered by a forest of trees
Earlier in the 8th century Moors migrated to or invaded what is now Spain and Portugal The upper reaches of Portugal had already been peopled by Lusitani Iberians and Celts The Moors brought their musical instruments with them later to be called lutes and others some of which most likely had re-entrant tunings (Lusitani are said to have manufactured a braguinha as early as 139 BC It did not have re-entrant tuning) The Moors would rule and fight Christians in Portugal and Spain for 600 years
Two Peoples Two Melting Pots
Meanwhile on the the other side of the planet in the Pacific Ocean Polynesians probably from the Society Islands near New Zealand and Australia migrated by boat to the Hawaiian Islands (They would be undisturbed by Europeans until British explorer Captain James Cook came upon the islands in 1778 He would die there the following year after naming them the Sandwich Islands after an English noble and got himself into a pickle with the natives)
The Christians in Portugal defeated the Moors by 1249 but immediately had to fend off the attempts of Spain to take over the country Spain was turned back for good in 1385 and Portugal has maintained its borders ever since The ensuing peace allowed Portugal to take to the sea and the great exploration of the oceans began and with it the modern rediscovery of Madeira Island and hence the Americas
The first to become Madeirans were Celts from Braga a village in northern Portugal When they arrived they set fire to clear some of the island of the heavy woods to make space for food crops mdashgrapes and sugar cane The fire raged for seven years at times driving many settlers into the sea for safety but the fire left the soil rich in phosphate good for vines
The imported Malmsey grape thrived and the resultant Madeira wine eventually became the wine of choice for hundreds of years around the world including the Americas once they were ldquodiscoveredrdquo (It has been asserted that the American founding fathers celebrated with Madeira wine when they issued the Declaration of Independence in
1776 Unlike America Portugal abolished without war slavery in 1775) Like all Celts the people of Braga were celebratory people and they brought their musical instrument with them mdash the braguinha sometimes called the machete de Braga This would become one of the primary instruments in a Madeiran folk music ensemble The rajatildeo would be invented and join the braguinha in more ways than one
By 1425 the worldrsquos first sugar cane plantation had been established in Madeira Sugar would play a role in the economies of both Madeira and Hawaii and would facilitate the creation of the ukulele
In 1478 Christopher Columbus visited the Madeiran Islands to buy sugar and married the daughter of the first governor of Santo Porto He found flotsam of various plants of foreign origin on the beach of Porto Santo a find that helped inculcate the theory that there were other lands or islands even further west from Madeira which led ultimately to his voyage to the Americas
Nearly 300 years later British Captain James Cook visited Madeira on his first voyage of discovery had an altercation with a local and returned later to plant a tulip tree near the beach to make amends (The tree lived until 1963) On his third voyage of discovery Cook led the first crew of Europeans to set eyes on the Hawaiian Islands landing there January 1778 He returned the next year after an unsuccessful hunt for the non-existent ldquoNorthwest Passagerdquo across the North American continent He died on Valentinersquos Day 1779 at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii slain by natives The first of
the Portuguese who came to Hawaii were sailors who came aboard the Eleanora in 1790 11 years after Cookrsquos demise
By 1805 after King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian islands a sandalwood trade was established mdash Hawaiirsquos first foray into international commerce It faded away along with the sandalwood itself 30 years later In 1819 Kamehameharsquos successor Liholiho ended the kapu system of religion and temples and the following year Protestant missionaries from New England rushed in to fill the void and pave the way for less adventerous businessmen By 1835 a single sugar plantation had been started and numerous churches built In 1844 the Hawaiian government began a 12-year program called The Great Mahele in which the Hawaiian lands were re-distributed At first foreigners were not allowed to own land but that changed in 1850 The sugar industry expanded and when the Civil War came to the United States Hawaii sugar exports accelerated but went into decline at the warrsquos end But in 1876 King David Kalakua who had been elected with the support of the sugar barons was able to get a trade agreement with the US that eliminated a tariff against sugar And the need for laborers in Hawaii grew right along with the sugar production
In 1849 thousands of seekers joined the California gold rush across both land and sea But Dr Wilhelm Hillebrand of Paderhorn Germany didnrsquot need gold he needed fresh air Infected with tuberculosis and financially secure he set out to find his breath He tried the climates
A Marriage of Peoples
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Pacific mdash and centuries after that their finding of one another would spawn the ukulele Embracing that history is the first step to Love Uke
Some historians believe that Phoenicians Romans and North Africans must have stumbled onto Madeira Island some 2000 years ago Others have suggested that Scandinavians approached it even earlier Maps from the 1300s seem to show the islands And therersquos a legend of two lovers who were stranded and died there But no humans were living on the islands in 1418 when Joatildeo Gonccedilalves Zarco a sea-faring explorer working for Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator found refuge from a storm at a small island he named Porto Santo ldquoHoly Portrdquo He didnrsquot see the larger neighboring island thru the mist Two years later he revisited saw the other island and named it ldquoMadeirardquo Portuguese for ldquowoodenrdquo because it was covered by a forest of trees
Earlier in the 8th century Moors migrated to or invaded what is now Spain and Portugal The upper reaches of Portugal had already been peopled by Lusitani Iberians and Celts The Moors brought their musical instruments with them later to be called lutes and others some of which most likely had re-entrant tunings (Lusitani are said to have manufactured a braguinha as early as 139 BC It did not have re-entrant tuning) The Moors would rule and fight Christians in Portugal and Spain for 600 years
Two Peoples Two Melting Pots
Meanwhile on the the other side of the planet in the Pacific Ocean Polynesians probably from the Society Islands near New Zealand and Australia migrated by boat to the Hawaiian Islands (They would be undisturbed by Europeans until British explorer Captain James Cook came upon the islands in 1778 He would die there the following year after naming them the Sandwich Islands after an English noble and got himself into a pickle with the natives)
The Christians in Portugal defeated the Moors by 1249 but immediately had to fend off the attempts of Spain to take over the country Spain was turned back for good in 1385 and Portugal has maintained its borders ever since The ensuing peace allowed Portugal to take to the sea and the great exploration of the oceans began and with it the modern rediscovery of Madeira Island and hence the Americas
The first to become Madeirans were Celts from Braga a village in northern Portugal When they arrived they set fire to clear some of the island of the heavy woods to make space for food crops mdashgrapes and sugar cane The fire raged for seven years at times driving many settlers into the sea for safety but the fire left the soil rich in phosphate good for vines
The imported Malmsey grape thrived and the resultant Madeira wine eventually became the wine of choice for hundreds of years around the world including the Americas once they were ldquodiscoveredrdquo (It has been asserted that the American founding fathers celebrated with Madeira wine when they issued the Declaration of Independence in
1776 Unlike America Portugal abolished without war slavery in 1775) Like all Celts the people of Braga were celebratory people and they brought their musical instrument with them mdash the braguinha sometimes called the machete de Braga This would become one of the primary instruments in a Madeiran folk music ensemble The rajatildeo would be invented and join the braguinha in more ways than one
By 1425 the worldrsquos first sugar cane plantation had been established in Madeira Sugar would play a role in the economies of both Madeira and Hawaii and would facilitate the creation of the ukulele
In 1478 Christopher Columbus visited the Madeiran Islands to buy sugar and married the daughter of the first governor of Santo Porto He found flotsam of various plants of foreign origin on the beach of Porto Santo a find that helped inculcate the theory that there were other lands or islands even further west from Madeira which led ultimately to his voyage to the Americas
Nearly 300 years later British Captain James Cook visited Madeira on his first voyage of discovery had an altercation with a local and returned later to plant a tulip tree near the beach to make amends (The tree lived until 1963) On his third voyage of discovery Cook led the first crew of Europeans to set eyes on the Hawaiian Islands landing there January 1778 He returned the next year after an unsuccessful hunt for the non-existent ldquoNorthwest Passagerdquo across the North American continent He died on Valentinersquos Day 1779 at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii slain by natives The first of
the Portuguese who came to Hawaii were sailors who came aboard the Eleanora in 1790 11 years after Cookrsquos demise
By 1805 after King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian islands a sandalwood trade was established mdash Hawaiirsquos first foray into international commerce It faded away along with the sandalwood itself 30 years later In 1819 Kamehameharsquos successor Liholiho ended the kapu system of religion and temples and the following year Protestant missionaries from New England rushed in to fill the void and pave the way for less adventerous businessmen By 1835 a single sugar plantation had been started and numerous churches built In 1844 the Hawaiian government began a 12-year program called The Great Mahele in which the Hawaiian lands were re-distributed At first foreigners were not allowed to own land but that changed in 1850 The sugar industry expanded and when the Civil War came to the United States Hawaii sugar exports accelerated but went into decline at the warrsquos end But in 1876 King David Kalakua who had been elected with the support of the sugar barons was able to get a trade agreement with the US that eliminated a tariff against sugar And the need for laborers in Hawaii grew right along with the sugar production
In 1849 thousands of seekers joined the California gold rush across both land and sea But Dr Wilhelm Hillebrand of Paderhorn Germany didnrsquot need gold he needed fresh air Infected with tuberculosis and financially secure he set out to find his breath He tried the climates
A Marriage of Peoples
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Meanwhile on the the other side of the planet in the Pacific Ocean Polynesians probably from the Society Islands near New Zealand and Australia migrated by boat to the Hawaiian Islands (They would be undisturbed by Europeans until British explorer Captain James Cook came upon the islands in 1778 He would die there the following year after naming them the Sandwich Islands after an English noble and got himself into a pickle with the natives)
The Christians in Portugal defeated the Moors by 1249 but immediately had to fend off the attempts of Spain to take over the country Spain was turned back for good in 1385 and Portugal has maintained its borders ever since The ensuing peace allowed Portugal to take to the sea and the great exploration of the oceans began and with it the modern rediscovery of Madeira Island and hence the Americas
The first to become Madeirans were Celts from Braga a village in northern Portugal When they arrived they set fire to clear some of the island of the heavy woods to make space for food crops mdashgrapes and sugar cane The fire raged for seven years at times driving many settlers into the sea for safety but the fire left the soil rich in phosphate good for vines
The imported Malmsey grape thrived and the resultant Madeira wine eventually became the wine of choice for hundreds of years around the world including the Americas once they were ldquodiscoveredrdquo (It has been asserted that the American founding fathers celebrated with Madeira wine when they issued the Declaration of Independence in
1776 Unlike America Portugal abolished without war slavery in 1775) Like all Celts the people of Braga were celebratory people and they brought their musical instrument with them mdash the braguinha sometimes called the machete de Braga This would become one of the primary instruments in a Madeiran folk music ensemble The rajatildeo would be invented and join the braguinha in more ways than one
By 1425 the worldrsquos first sugar cane plantation had been established in Madeira Sugar would play a role in the economies of both Madeira and Hawaii and would facilitate the creation of the ukulele
In 1478 Christopher Columbus visited the Madeiran Islands to buy sugar and married the daughter of the first governor of Santo Porto He found flotsam of various plants of foreign origin on the beach of Porto Santo a find that helped inculcate the theory that there were other lands or islands even further west from Madeira which led ultimately to his voyage to the Americas
Nearly 300 years later British Captain James Cook visited Madeira on his first voyage of discovery had an altercation with a local and returned later to plant a tulip tree near the beach to make amends (The tree lived until 1963) On his third voyage of discovery Cook led the first crew of Europeans to set eyes on the Hawaiian Islands landing there January 1778 He returned the next year after an unsuccessful hunt for the non-existent ldquoNorthwest Passagerdquo across the North American continent He died on Valentinersquos Day 1779 at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii slain by natives The first of
the Portuguese who came to Hawaii were sailors who came aboard the Eleanora in 1790 11 years after Cookrsquos demise
By 1805 after King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian islands a sandalwood trade was established mdash Hawaiirsquos first foray into international commerce It faded away along with the sandalwood itself 30 years later In 1819 Kamehameharsquos successor Liholiho ended the kapu system of religion and temples and the following year Protestant missionaries from New England rushed in to fill the void and pave the way for less adventerous businessmen By 1835 a single sugar plantation had been started and numerous churches built In 1844 the Hawaiian government began a 12-year program called The Great Mahele in which the Hawaiian lands were re-distributed At first foreigners were not allowed to own land but that changed in 1850 The sugar industry expanded and when the Civil War came to the United States Hawaii sugar exports accelerated but went into decline at the warrsquos end But in 1876 King David Kalakua who had been elected with the support of the sugar barons was able to get a trade agreement with the US that eliminated a tariff against sugar And the need for laborers in Hawaii grew right along with the sugar production
In 1849 thousands of seekers joined the California gold rush across both land and sea But Dr Wilhelm Hillebrand of Paderhorn Germany didnrsquot need gold he needed fresh air Infected with tuberculosis and financially secure he set out to find his breath He tried the climates
A Marriage of Peoples
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
1776 Unlike America Portugal abolished without war slavery in 1775) Like all Celts the people of Braga were celebratory people and they brought their musical instrument with them mdash the braguinha sometimes called the machete de Braga This would become one of the primary instruments in a Madeiran folk music ensemble The rajatildeo would be invented and join the braguinha in more ways than one
By 1425 the worldrsquos first sugar cane plantation had been established in Madeira Sugar would play a role in the economies of both Madeira and Hawaii and would facilitate the creation of the ukulele
In 1478 Christopher Columbus visited the Madeiran Islands to buy sugar and married the daughter of the first governor of Santo Porto He found flotsam of various plants of foreign origin on the beach of Porto Santo a find that helped inculcate the theory that there were other lands or islands even further west from Madeira which led ultimately to his voyage to the Americas
Nearly 300 years later British Captain James Cook visited Madeira on his first voyage of discovery had an altercation with a local and returned later to plant a tulip tree near the beach to make amends (The tree lived until 1963) On his third voyage of discovery Cook led the first crew of Europeans to set eyes on the Hawaiian Islands landing there January 1778 He returned the next year after an unsuccessful hunt for the non-existent ldquoNorthwest Passagerdquo across the North American continent He died on Valentinersquos Day 1779 at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii slain by natives The first of
the Portuguese who came to Hawaii were sailors who came aboard the Eleanora in 1790 11 years after Cookrsquos demise
By 1805 after King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian islands a sandalwood trade was established mdash Hawaiirsquos first foray into international commerce It faded away along with the sandalwood itself 30 years later In 1819 Kamehameharsquos successor Liholiho ended the kapu system of religion and temples and the following year Protestant missionaries from New England rushed in to fill the void and pave the way for less adventerous businessmen By 1835 a single sugar plantation had been started and numerous churches built In 1844 the Hawaiian government began a 12-year program called The Great Mahele in which the Hawaiian lands were re-distributed At first foreigners were not allowed to own land but that changed in 1850 The sugar industry expanded and when the Civil War came to the United States Hawaii sugar exports accelerated but went into decline at the warrsquos end But in 1876 King David Kalakua who had been elected with the support of the sugar barons was able to get a trade agreement with the US that eliminated a tariff against sugar And the need for laborers in Hawaii grew right along with the sugar production
In 1849 thousands of seekers joined the California gold rush across both land and sea But Dr Wilhelm Hillebrand of Paderhorn Germany didnrsquot need gold he needed fresh air Infected with tuberculosis and financially secure he set out to find his breath He tried the climates
A Marriage of Peoples
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
the Portuguese who came to Hawaii were sailors who came aboard the Eleanora in 1790 11 years after Cookrsquos demise
By 1805 after King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian islands a sandalwood trade was established mdash Hawaiirsquos first foray into international commerce It faded away along with the sandalwood itself 30 years later In 1819 Kamehameharsquos successor Liholiho ended the kapu system of religion and temples and the following year Protestant missionaries from New England rushed in to fill the void and pave the way for less adventerous businessmen By 1835 a single sugar plantation had been started and numerous churches built In 1844 the Hawaiian government began a 12-year program called The Great Mahele in which the Hawaiian lands were re-distributed At first foreigners were not allowed to own land but that changed in 1850 The sugar industry expanded and when the Civil War came to the United States Hawaii sugar exports accelerated but went into decline at the warrsquos end But in 1876 King David Kalakua who had been elected with the support of the sugar barons was able to get a trade agreement with the US that eliminated a tariff against sugar And the need for laborers in Hawaii grew right along with the sugar production
In 1849 thousands of seekers joined the California gold rush across both land and sea But Dr Wilhelm Hillebrand of Paderhorn Germany didnrsquot need gold he needed fresh air Infected with tuberculosis and financially secure he set out to find his breath He tried the climates
A Marriage of Peoples
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
of Australia and the Philippines and attempted his medical practice there But his practice failed and he remained ill
In December 1850 he arrived in Honolulu Hawaii Apparently the climate was good to him and he stayed in Hawaii for 21 years In that time he was befriended by Queen Emma the wife of King Kamahameha IV Like the Queen Hildebrand was an avid amateur botanist and between the two of them they brought to Hawaii a wide variety of plants from the Asian mainland including the plumeria used in weaving leis the traditional floral wreaths Hawaiians wear and present to visitors
In 1848 thousands of Hawaiians had died of influenza and in 1850 the island of Oahu lost half its population to smallpox (Faster ships had made it possible for the smallpox virus to survive the trip from San Francisco to Honolulu) Kamehameha and Emma raised funds for a hospital and Hillebrand became its first director and doctor Queens Hospital is still one of the largest in the South Seas
He returned to his homeland in 1871 and was dissatisfied with the new German Reich so he left for Madeira Island which had become by then the major stopping off point for firewood food and water before crossing the Atlantic There he published a book ldquoFlora of the Hawaiian Islandsrdquo He also became aware of the dismal agricultural condition in Madeira due to a recent drought He knew too of the need for laborers on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and Madeirans had experience growing sugar so he wrote his friends and eventually hired the bark Priscilla which brought 120 Madeirans to work in
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Hawaii in September 1878 Although there were traditional Madeiran musical instruments on board the ship apparently no one on the boat knew how to play them The Priscilla Madeirans joined the nearly 1100 Portuguese who were already in Hawaii perhaps 900 from Madeira These were primarily sailors who came by way of Timor Batavia and Macao
The following year Hillebrand hired another ship the Ravenscrag and that bark brought woodworkers Manuel Nunes Augusto Dias and Jose Espirito Santo and 350 other Madeirans to Hawaii This time there were musicians on boardmdash Joao Luiz Correa and Joao Fernandes Joatildeo Gomes da Silva was a passenger on the Ravenscrag who had a braguinha but he didnrsquot know how to play it He loaned it to Fernandes who is said to have disembarked the Ravenscrag while energetically playing it mdash venting after four months at sea No doubt Nunes and his cohorts noticed the gleeful approval of Fernandesrsquo performance by the Hawaiians Fernandez later played braguinha for King David Kalakaua Queen Emma Queen Lilirsquouokalani and for a three-day luau in Waimanalo
Nunes Dias and Santos believed they would be serving the needs of their fellow countrymen when they arrived Although the rajatildeo was being played in the taro fields and had earned the nickname ldquotaro-patch fiddlerdquo there was not much repair work for them to do
Manuel Nunesrsquo older brother Octaviano Joatildeo Nunes was a viola and rabeca maker who specialized in rajatildeos so Manuel had a good idea
A Marriage of Instruments
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
how to make instruments Manuel Nunes hadnrsquot come to Hawaii to make instruments or to teach Hawaiians how to play Madeiran music nor was he a musician per se (Although according to his granddaughter Flora Fox he ldquoplayed the ukulele beautifullyrdquo mdash but he had to invent it first)
According to ethnomusicologist Gisa Jaehnichen Nunes observed the musical interests of the Hawaiians and realized the need for an easy-to-play instrument to accompany short structured songs The complicated sound of a typical Madeiran ensemble that included rajatildeo braguinha and viola drsquoaram didnrsquot fit the musical styles of Hawaiian players (In a Madeiran folk ensemble the viola was the bass of sorts the rajatildeo carried the rhythm and often melody while the braguinha was an ldquoadd-onrdquo instrument that peppered the high end of the overall sound)
Nunes worked with Dias and Santos to develop a plan mdash they would build a mini-rajatildeo It could be played rhythmically and as a solo instgrument They took the GCEA strings from the rajatildeo and put them on the body of a braguinha The tuning was re-entrant the G string was an octave higher than one would normally expect it to be giving the tuning the sound of the mnemonic L to R Modern rajatildeo modern
braguinha Nunes ukulele from c 1900
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
ldquoMy Dog Has Fleasrdquo The new instrument could be played using the same fingering geometry for making chords on the guitar but without the bass Like the rajatildeo it could be used for both melody and rhythm ensemble or solo (The rajatildeo was tuned DGCEA with the D and G strings both being re-entrant On the new four-string instrument tuned GCEA only the G was re-entrant)
To market and promote their new instrument they took it to King David Kalakaua who was an accomplished musician (The Mexican cowboys paniolos had brought the guitar to Hawaii earlier as did Spanish sailors via the Phillipines) Kalakaua could immediately play it and loved it and it soon became not only the favorite musical instrument of the islands but because Hawaii was becoming a ldquoplace to gordquo for tourists the ukulele became one of the first conscious souvenirs of any place
Nunes Dias and Santos each opened a music repair shop and manufactured ukuleles from Hawaiian koa wood Nunes continued making instruments into the 20th Century and his son Leonardo opened his own factory in California (Descendants of the three woodworkers today have animated discussions about the ldquotruerdquo inventor of the ukulele but it seems likely that the three friends collaborated The effect of their friendship was apparent later when others mdash Kamaka Makini Koaloha et al mdash began making ukuleles and partied together)
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
There are several versions of when and how the ukulele got its name Some say the sight of Fernandes playing it as he came down the gangplank reminded the Hawaiians of someone scratching at fleas One literal translation of ukulele is ldquojumping fleardquo Others say British soldier Edward Purvis who was Chamberlain to King Kalaukaua played it so energetically that he was the inspiration for the name and that he rather than the instrument was the first recipient of the name Others surmise that the name is a pun based on the union of ukeke and mele or lele The first is a traditional Hawaiian instrument mdash its only traditional string instrument mdash that is plucked like a Jewrsquos harp The second is the Hawaiian word for ldquosongrdquo The third can mean ldquodancingrdquo
Queen Lilirsquouokalani wrote that it came from the union of uku and lele meaning ldquothe gift that came hererdquo Leslie Nunes a great-grandson of Manuel gave some acknowledgement to this meaning when he titled his book on the history of the ukulele Ukulele the Gift of the Portuguese
May Singhi Breen wrote that ldquoIt was so small in comparison to the guitars the natives were used to playing that when they first played it their fingers and hands sort of lsquoskipped offrsquo the small keyboard Thatrsquos why it is call ukulele meaning lsquojumping flearsquordquo
Another version attributes the origin to a remark made at a house party at Judge W L Wilcoxrsquos home in Kahili where Gabriel Davian was playing an ukulele he had made himself When asked what the instrument was called he joked that ldquojudging by the way you scratch at it it must be called lsquoukulelersquo (jumping flea)rdquo The name may have come from all of these Pick your favorite And play on it
Whatrsquos In a Name
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
In Hawaii ukulele is pronounced ldquooo-koo-lay-layrdquo but on the mainland it is usually pronounced ldquoyou-koo-ley-leerdquo In England it is spelled ldquoukelelerdquo Often the instrument is simply called ldquoukerdquo but some Hawaiians say that that term is slightly derogatory and they donrsquot use it (This author does use ldquoukerdquo as a term of endearment)
The ukulele for a little while had been referred to by its inventor(s) as a mini-rajatildeo In some European histories of the ukulele the instrument is described as a cavaquinho which is a similar instrument form Portugalrsquos mainland and is tuned differently
As the ukulele grew in popularity the rajatildeo faded away Some players later wanted more volume so Nunes doubled the strings and appropriated the rajatildeorsquos pre-ukulele nickname for the new instrument ldquotaro patchrdquo
One of the first songs and arguably the most important associated with the ukulele was Queen Lilirsquouokalanirsquos Aloha lsquoOe She wrote the first version of the tune at Maunawili Ranch in Oahu in 1878 the year before the arrival of the Ravenscrag with the luthiers who built the first ukulele Originally based on lovers saying a fond farewell it became the de facto anthem of Hawaii after the United States forced Queen Lil to abdicate her throne imprisoned her and usurped the islands
Comparisons of the melody to familiar hymns of the day are legion and include
Aloha lsquoOe
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Charles C Conversersquos The Rock Beside the Sea and George Rootrsquos Therersquos Music in the Air The published 1884 version of the chorus deviated from Lililsquouokalanirsquos manuscript in He Buke Mele Hawaii
presumably to avoid a direct paraphrase of the Root tune Today it is not only a beautiful love song but a haunting lament and a very sophisticated political statement The Bishop Museum has the original manuscript in the Queenrsquos handwriting visible here John Youngrsquos transcription of the original
is here A live version recorded in Madeira as part of the project Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele can be heard by selecting the icon on this page
By the end of the 19th century the ukulele began to travel abroad just as King Kalakaua had done It first appeared on the mainland at the 1893 Worldrsquos Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the next year in San Franciscorsquos Mid-Winter Festival It showed up later at fairs in Buffalo Atlanta New York and Los Angeles Although these appearances helped associate the ukulele with Hawaii they did not popularize it
Richard Walton Tully of Nevada City CA one of the California Gold Rush towns that sprung up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after Capt John Sutterrsquos man John Marshall found gold in the American River at a sawmill in Coloma wrote Bird of Paradise a play that appeared in New York in
The Infant Ukulele
Aloha Oe Performed in Funchal Madeira 1998
This was the opening song by the Reunion Band four Madeirans and three Americans participating in the Father and Son
Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulele September 1998
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
1912 Tully had travelled to Hawaii to do research for his play and had learned to sing Hawaiian tunes and to play the ukulele
The play caused a great stir in New York on many levels There was a lawsuit over its authorship Some say the play ended the Victorian Era in New York The Kamaka family of ukulele makers sent its mother to teach the cast how to dance the hula Laurette Taylor starred and her mother incensed that Taylor was showing bare ankle said ldquoI didnrsquot raise my daughter to be a harlotrdquo New York would never be the same and when movies learned to talk Bird of Paradise became a film hit Among the dozen or so songs in the play was of course Aloha Oe
The next big push for the ukulele came from the same city where Kalakaua had taken his last breath as he neared the end of a world tour the first by any magistrate mdash San Francisco With the dual purpose of celebrating the cityrsquos
rebirth from the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire and the opening of the Panama Canal San Francisco hosted the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition The Territory of Hawaii went all out and its pavilion was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair Beautiful scantily-clad brown-toned people danced the hula and bands performed energetically with ukuleles Two of Manuel Nunesrsquo granddaughters were among the Hawaiian residents who
Performers from Hawaii at the
1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in
The Ukulele Blossoms
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
came to teach ukulele at the Exposition Flora Fox was one of them this author interviewed her on her 102 birthday in Santa Rosa California
The timing was perfect for the ukulele The Hawaiian ragtime tune On the Beach at Waikiki became a huge hit and the songsters of Tin Pan Alley took notice Almost immediately ldquoHawaiianrdquomusic mdash hapa haole music really mdash sold sheet music in the millions The phrase means ldquohalf non-Hawaiianrdquo although in order to make a living many Hawaiians wrote similar tunes in addition to traditional Hawaiian music
The size of sheet music was shrinking the phonograph record was burgeoning radio and talking movies were growing And in the thick of it all was the ukulele Accessible and cheap many very well constructed and a good player could play just about anything on it mdash rhythm harmony melody mdash and percussion
The Pan Pacific Exposition set off a craze that lasted 20 years From 1915 to 1935 the ukulele was the most popular instrument in the American home mdash until the big band sounds helped drown it out Tin Pan Alley songs tended to be written on pianos by folks like Irving Berlin Cole Porter Joe Young George Gershwin et al but they were played on ukuleles by the masses in parlors dorms rowboats under the moon parties weddings and foxholes in wartime
Players songs playing styles manufacturers method books even types of ukuleles proliferated Guitar companies made them In 1907 the revered Martin Guitar Company tried making them but they didnrsquot play well They built them like guitars and they sounded dead Nunes showed Martin what was wrong and they started making them again in 1915 In 1920 they made them of native Hawaiian wood and they took off Today Martin
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
ukuleles from the 1920rsquos can be as expensive as a restored antique Bentley Gibson Gretsch Harmony Regal Dobro National Washburn and many other national guitar builders built ukuleles Numerous other makers made only ukuleles or spin-offs of the ukulele
In Hawaii many ukulele manufacturers besides Nunes Santos and Dias arose mdash Kamaka Makini Kumalae Aloha Some mainland manufacturers falsely put ldquoMade in Hawaiirdquo in their instruments but a law was passed that made that kapu forbidden Tiki King in Felton California maintains a database of more than 600 brands of ukuleles You can visit that here The ukulele history of the Martin Guitar Company is here Herersquos a list of famous ukulele players
Two years after the Pan Pacific Exposition the United States Congress passed legislation that led in 1920 to Prohibition and the ldquospeakeasyrdquo ukulele era Ukulele virtuoso and historian Fred Fallin of Chicago today lectures on that era of gangsters flappers raccoon coats rising hemlines and rolled down socks washboard hairstyles jazz talking movies the Edison phonograph and live radio ukuleles had gone to war in doughboysrsquo knapsacks and even though Prohibition took effect as World War I ended the Roaring Twenties would party mdash with ukuleles and illegal libations mdash until the economic collapse of 1929 Prohibition ended in 1933 and right behind it the ukulelersquos popularity began to wane as the Big Band era rushed in to fill the newly legal drinking clubs with bigger sounds
Wendell Hall ldquothe pineapple picadorrdquo or ldquored-haired music makerrdquo made it big with the ukulele in the 1920s and lsquo30s The Ludwig Company produced the Wendall Hall Professional banjo-ukes in 1932-3 (This author
Early Players
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
has owned one since 1974) Six years before Ukelele Ikersquos 1929 Singing in the Rain was a hit Hall sold over two million copies of his song It Ainrsquot Gonnarsquo Rain No Mo He hosted several national music radio programs including the Gillette Community Sing He wrote ukulele instruction books and performed on taro patch banjo-uke and tiple variants of the ukulele and helped design his own uke the Red Head More on Wendall Hall here
May Singhi Breen received a ukulele for Christmas and before long she had formed The Syncopators with several other women She met songwriter Peter DeRose in 1923 and left the group for him They married in 1929 By then she had convinced music publishers to add ukulele arrangements to sheet music Itrsquos hard to find sheet music from the lsquo20s that do not have Breenrsquos arrangements To brighten the sound of the ukulele she popularized the stiffer ADFB tuning (D6) The PrsquoMico company was so taken with her they created a May Singhi Breen autographed banjo-uke Later Breen took on the American Federation of Musicians union to force it accept the ukulele as a true musical instrument She recorded the first audio ukulele lesson and produced method books and edited one by Wendall Hall She and DeRose hosted a radio show ldquoSweethearts of the Airrdquo from 1923 to 1939 Breen was known as the Ukulele Lady and was instrumental in teaching others to play as soloists and in groups which she herself formed Her instructional books emphasized the solo capabilities of the ukulele with her slogan Uke can play the melody The ukulele Hall of Fame Museum page on her is here and a YouTube offering of an instruction recording she did with female singer Vaughn DeLeath in the 1920s is here
Bobby ldquoUkerdquo Henshaw was a uke player associated with patriotic songs of WWI When the war ended he introduced the ukulele to England and
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
toured Europe He may well have been the person responsible for turning on the British ukulele master George Formby Called ldquoThe Human Ukulelerdquo by the press he circled the globe three times in his career and surely helped to spread the ukulelersquos favor worldwide Henshaw also licensed a line of namesake ukuleles baritones and guitars More on Henshaw here
Another player who had an impact during WWI was Bill Tapia who played ukulele at the age of twelve for soldiers in Honolulu He taught several celebrities to play including Betty Grable Jimmy Durante and Buster Crabbe Later he moved to the mainland US and played guitar in big bands In the early 21st century his ukulele career flourished anew and he became an icon of the ldquothirdrdquo ukulele wave of popularity He died in 2011 just shy of his 104th birthday
Roy Smeck shares a history congruent with Henshawrsquos The Harmony Company put out a line of ukuleles the Vita-Uke with Smeckrsquos signature Like Henshaw he was a virtuoso on numerous stringed instruments mdash guitar manolin Hawaiian steel guitar banjo ukes He lent his name to a ukulele string manufacturer and was one of the first musicians to perform in a sound movie More on Smeck here
As the nation prepared for Prohibition Cliff Edwards performed a tune Ja-Da on the ukulele in a Chicago nightclub on the vaudeville circuit It became a hit A nightclub owner who couldrsquot remember his name called him Ukelele Ike (he spelled it with the British spelling) He is said to be the most influential performer in the 1920s in popularizing the ukulele He insisted on playing Martins Fred Fallin of Chicago has one of his Martins complete with cigarette burn on the peg head In 1928 he had a major hit with I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love The following year Singing in the Rain was a huge hit He recorded his jazzy versions of many popular tunes
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
of the 20s In 1940 his friend Walt Disney gave him the voice part of Jimminy Cricket in the movie Pinocchio Bing crosby said he learned his own crooning technique from Cliff Edwards More on Ukulele Ike here
While the Pan Pacific Exposition was underway in San Francisco on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean an 11-year-old boy was playing the part of a stable boy in an English movie His father a successful actor had just died and George Booth being the oldest of seven children had to go to work By 1920 he was working in British minstrel shows He wasnrsquot very good He met a woman in 1923 who would become his wife who would direct his career by then he had taken his fatherrsquos stage name mdash George
Formby mdash and taken up playing the ukulele he had bought from a fellow showman for 30 shillings He would become wildly popular make hundreds of recordings and dozens of movies In the 1960s Hermanrsquos Hermits would record his Leaning on a Lamp which had been one of his earliest hits 40 plus years earlier He had heard recordings of Cliff Edwards and other American players but he developed his own Formby style of strumming what he called the ldquosplit strokerdquo His style was exactly that his style immediately recognizable upon first hearing it Beatles George Harrison John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each cited Formby as a major influence in their music Harrison especially was fond of the ukulele and in the 1980s joined the George Formby Society of enthusiasts More on George Formby here More on rock stars and ukulele later on
George Formby
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Many songs joined Aloha Oe as ukulele ldquogotta havesrdquo early on There were show-off tunes Stars and Stripes Forever Under the Double Eagle On the Beach at Waikiki Hawaiian War Chant Ainrsquot She Sweet Five-Foot-Two Ja-Da The instrument begged to participate in novelty tunes OrsquoBrien Is Tryinrsquo To Learn To Talk Hawaiian to His Honolulu Lu What Did Robinson Caruso Do With Friday on Saturday Night Theyrsquore Wearinrsquo lsquoEm Higharsquo in Hawaii and many many more In England the songs George Formby sang were all novelties written by associates (his wife insisted Formbyrsquos name be added as an author) In the US Tin Pan Alley churned out hit after hit
And then came the sentimental er love songs As the Victorian Era faded away and war Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties emerged the ukulele swelled in popularity Sheet music showed ukulele tunings and chords (thanks in large part to May Singhi Breen) Manufacturers sprung up all
over the country in Hawaii and the mainland The banjo-uke was invented for its distinctive sound and added volume The good players ldquocoveredrdquo the Tin Pan Alley tunes and Hawaiian song
makers emulated the success of the New Yorkers Tin pan Ally composers wrote their songs on piano but the nation played them on ukuleles
Movies radio and the phonograph brought music into homes but so did the ukulele In time however professional media would almost completely displace self-made music but for the time being the new media helped
Early Songs
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
spur people to get a uke and play it in the moonlight It was party time despite the Prohibition and soon despite the Depression
After October 29 1929 the ukulele and song makers went into action Brother Can You Spare a Dime Pocketful of Dreams I Canrsquot Give You Anything But Love Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams Over the Rainbow On the Sunny Side of the Street Pennies From Heaven Stormy Weather and many many more The International Workers of the World published a book of labor songs with ukulele chords
Just as the ukulele had helped doughboys get through WWI it helped Americans plow through the Great Depression The re-entrant voice of the ukulele gave folks the power to say some pretty important things and still foster a happy feeling Prohibition ended in 1933 and the nationrsquos love affair with the ukulele began to fade but not necessarily in the movies Also in 1933 Oliver Hardy played mdash and broke mdash a ukulele in Sons of the Desert By 1935 however thanks in part to the new media that brought produced music into the home and the big bands that filled the night clubs the ukulele was on the wane
During World War II some GIs took ukuleles to the battle fields (the authorrsquos first ukulele was a banjo-uke from the 1930s that had been to WWII and featured a drawing of a smiling airplane on the playing head) And others brought ukuleles home from the war after passing through Hawaii
The ukulele didnrsquot go away but it took a back seat for a while until a newer media came along Television
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Arthur Godfrey had made his mark as a radio personality in part by using the technique of imagining himself talking to a single individual when he was ldquoon micrdquo This feeling of intimacy was infectious and made him a star (He continued his radio programming and I fondly recall listening to him through headphones on a crystal radio set on KNX in Los Angeles in the 1950s)
Sometime in the late 1940s Godfrey had approached an instrument manufacturer mdash accounts vary from Martin to Vega to Favilla take your pick mdash to make a larger ukulele the instrument we call a ldquobaritone ukulelerdquo Sometimes tuned with a re-entrant D string like the original ukulele it has the lowered tuning of the four high strings of the guitar DGBE In addition to his friendly demeanor Godfrey became associated with the ukulele and lent his name to a series plastic ukuleles manufactured in the US in the 1950s
The Italian luthier inventor and classical guitarist (until an accident damaged his hand) Mario Maccaferri began making plastic ukuleles and banjo-ukes Two of the most popular were the Arthur Godfrey TV Pal and the Islander Uke Maccaferri also made the Mastro plastic banjo Millions were sold in the 1950s More on this phenomenon here
Meanwhile a former tuba player was working in a music store in Los Angeles He had learned to play bass during the Korean War but the sound of the ukuleles in the music store intrigued him A record producer heard Lyle Ritz playing one day and by the end of the lsquo50s Ritz had
The Ukulelersquos First Re-entrance
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
recorded two jazz ukulele albums He became the bass player on the Wrecking Crew the in-house rhythm section for Capitol Records When Roy Sakuma of Honolulu took over production of the International Ukulele Festival in 1971 he went looking for Ritz who had spent time in Hawaii during the Korean War and whose ukulele playing had impacted many Hawaiian players Sakuma has said that Ritz had no idea he had a Hawaiian fan base Today his fame is worldwide and you can learn more here
In the early 50s in Greenwich Village New York City a ukulele player Herbert Khaury using the name Larry Love began a long career at a lesbian bar called the Page 3 singing unusual renditions of old songs By the early 60s he had a cult following in the Village and changed his name to Tiny Tim In 1968 Rowan and Martin brought him to their popular television comedy Laugh In and later he brought his warbled version of Tip Toe Through to the Tulips to the Johnny Carson Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason programs (The Laugh In name was a spin-off of the be-ins and love-ins of the era which were themselves spin-offs of the sit-ins of the civil rights movement of the previous decade Laugh In was also a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon who had already given his ldquoswan songrdquo earlier The ldquosock it to merdquo abuse he took on the program apparently made him palatable to the American voter and he went on to become the only President forced to resign)
The year after Tiny Timrsquos big hit in Honolulu Eddie Bush a banker by day and ukulele performer by night recorded the album A Man and his ukulele He too made it to Johnny Carsonrsquos Tonight program as well as Mike Douglas Merv Griffin Ed Sullivan Lawrence Welk and Johnny Cash His goal was different than Timrsquos I want to show that (the ukulele) can be
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
used as a featured instrument not only as background or as a noveltyrdquo he said Bush stretched the limits of the instrument Especially notable is his version of Holiday for Strings a tune selected for the 1998 compilation Legends of the ukulele assembled by Jim Beloff Bush passed in 2002 of a heart attack at age 67
Unlike Bush and although he was an excellent player and song historian Tiny Tim chose to present the ukulele as something of a novelty prop along the lines of Jack Bennyrsquos violin or Bob Hopersquos golf club Unfortunately by the time he elected to play seriously few were paying attention He suffered a heart attack just as he arrived in front of the microphone on stage at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Expo in 1996 and a second fatal attack on stage in Minneapolis while singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips His use of the ukulele in the 1960s was nearly unique to the era and his death marks roughly the beginning of the second re-entrance of the ukulelersquos popularity the one we are in now (2012)
The popular childrenrsquos program Sesame Street used the ukulele as an object of derision during the era too In 1970 Ernie consoles the Cookie Monster whose ukulele has broken but who then eats it when itrsquos repaired
Outside of the purview of mainstream media during this period however things happen that will ldquosaverdquo the ukulele for future generations and lead to its present popularity
Unlike Tiny Tim and the Sesame Street jokesters educators in Hawaii and Canada were taking the ukulele very very seriously
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Roy Sakuma of Honolulu had taken ukulele lessons from Herb Otha who encouraged him to become a performer Sakuma elected to become a teacher instead and by 1971 had created the International ukulele Festival in Kapiolani Park Honolulu the longest running ukulele festival and the largest of its kind Each festival features hundreds of ukulele students performing usually 800 or so in recent years Sakuma and his wife Kathy pepper the bill with ukulele groups from all over the world as well as solo
performers duos and other combos Sakuma has developed methodology for teaching the ukulele and has kept the instrument vibrant and alive in Hawaiian culture Long before the present ukulele craze Sakuma was quietly but ardently marrying students manufacturers schools clubs and performers together Herb Otha and Lyle Ritz are fixtures of the festival but the impact of more than 40 years of dedication to teaching youngsters to play the ukulele cannot be overstated
In addition to the festival and educational programs Sakuma produced numerous CDs of culturally significant and musically stunning ukulele performances While Tiny tim and Laugh In were trivializing the ukulele in Hawaii the ground was bing prepared that would give birth to todayrsquos young and phenomenal Hawaiian ukulele players
In Canada Halifax Nova Scotia school officials responded to a small but vocal group of citizens who wanted better music instruction in the schools In 1966 Chalmers Doane was hired to implement new programs Among the things he did to better music education was to favor the ukulele as a
Determination and Germination
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
primary teaching tool ldquo[If the strings are developed successfullyrdquo he argued ldquothe others fall into placerdquo
As an accomplished trombonist violinist bassist pianist clarinetist and ukulele player he was able to build award winning orchestras and musical groups in a short period of time He caused an inexpensive ukulele to be made a distinctive obtuse triangle shape with three small sound holes an instrument still favored in Canadian groups The success of his program in Halifax fueled by his own passion for teaching spread across Canada with a goal that every child would get a quality musical education by sixth grade
The highly respected Langley Ukulele Ensemble in British Columbia is a testament to Doanersquos successful vision Canadian ukulele wizard James Hill a close friend student and musical partner of Doanersquos owes no small part of his success to the programs built by Doane Hill today carries on the same work and besides performing world wide has developed ukulele workshops in schools across Canada and edits Ukulele Yes an on-line resource for ukulele teachers a project started years ago by Doane
One reason the ukulele was chosen as a primary instrument for education rather than say the recorder or penny-whistle is that it readily lends itself to the study of harmony One exercise prevalent in the system is ldquosinging the stringsrdquo in which students pick one string and sing whatever note is being played on that string when a chord is made It is by far the easiest way to learn harmony mdash itrsquos all right there in the diminutive ukulele
Three other notable aspects of Doanersquos program are changing from the hiring of instructors who play to hiring performers who teach redirecting the music budget from the high school years to the earliest grades and
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
emphasizing performance (performing music Doane says is how one gains literacy in music akin to speaking reading and writing in the study of English)
Although there is a 21st Century ukulele craze happening worldwide Canada has been hip to the ukulele for decades thanks in large part to Doane The Langley ensemble performs in Hawaii every year and is highly regarded worldwide as is its most famous alumni James Hill In Liverpool Nova Scotia every two years is held an International Ukulele Ceilidh an event that features local groups as well as popular players from the US England and Japan
In some ways the present ukulele wave of popularity is the rest of the world catching up to Hawaii and Canada
It started in the late 1970s with bulletin boards then telnet and email then email forums The Internet let people communicate all over the world in new ways In the mid-1990s the World Wide Web emerged at first only for non-commercial uses Enthusiasts of all kinds began to find one another ukulele players began to discover other ukulele players Although I had been playing ukulele for more than 30 years I did not know other ukulele players until the mid-1990s when I met them on the Internet
An email forum created by a student in a New England college was one of the earliest appearances o the ukulele in cyber space The Ukulele Freedom Front the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum Riot Ukes and Cool Hand Ukersquos Lava Tube were among the first ukulele websites if not the first In the email forums and on a growing number of websites ukulele
The Ukulelersquos Second Re-entrance
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
players traded stories songs playing tips instrument reviews repair tips histories and recordings An exciting time it was as ukulele players learned they werenrsquot alone Collectors met players Luthiers found players Most forum members were established players Newcomers to the ukulele were few
But their numbers were growing
Although there were uke groups scattered here and there mdash Roy Conersquos group in Salisbury Texas and the Vokuleles in Chico CA for example mdash there was no widespread communication among groups of players except perhaps those who had participated in Roy Sakumarsquos Honolulu festival In 1993 I became aware of a ukulele festival in Hayward CA not by way of the Internet but in a travel magazine I performed at the First Annual Northern California ukulele Festival as it was called and was surprised to see that most of the players werenrsquot playing ukuleles at all but small six-string baritone ukuleles (more properly called soprano guitars) and very few instruments had re-entrant tuning But the players most of whom were singing Hawaiian traditional songs called them ukuleles The instruments were not really ukuleles in my mind and I was inspired to write a tune about it
The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum was founded in Providence RI in 1996 by Paul Syphers Sue Abbotson David Wasser Nuni Lyn-Walsh and Tom Walsh It featured a huge collection of ukuleles and produced several festivals inducted significant personalities from the ukulele world into a Hall of Fame and published a periodical on ukulele lore It still exists as a not-for-profit organization but has not been very active in the past few years
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
In 1997 Jim and Liz Beloff published an elegant full-color book The Ukulele A Visual History His sister and brother-in-law followed up with the Fluke ukulele an oddly-shaped plastic body ukulele that has become very popular among new players Recently they have issued a smaller version the Flea and a banjo-ukulele version The book was very instrumental in increasing the awareness of the ukulele More than a dozen song books fill out their current catalog available through Flea Market Music
In 1998 three American ukulele players (Alfredo Canopin Fred Fallin and Dan Scanlan) and a great grandson of Manuel Nunes (Leslie Nunes of Honolulu) returned the ukulele to Madeira island and taught folk musicians there how to play it The project ldquoA Father and Son Reunion The Braguinha Meets the Ukulelerdquo was sponsored in part by the Madeira Island government and was produced by Madeiran Joatildeo Mauricio Marques and Dan Scanlan After 10 days of rehearsal the Father and Son Reunion Band consisting of the three Americans and four Madeirans playing ukuleles rajatildeo and braguinhas performed two shows in Madeira and were featured on Madeira Island Day at the World Expo in Lisbon The Expo concert was video cast live throughout Europe and sderved to further the ukulelersquos prominence in that part of the world
The present ukulele craze this second ldquore-entrancerdquo or in other words the third ukulele craze can be attributed (in my estimation) to
bull Music educators using the ukulele to teach music in Canada and Hawaii
bull The rise of the Internet enabling ukulele enthusiasts to find one another
bull The growth of ukulele groups and their festivals
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
bull The Father and Son Reunion The Brauinha Meets the Ukulele in which the ukulele was returned to Madeira and featured at the 1998 Lisbon Worldrsquos Fair
bull Israel Kamakawiworsquoolersquos version of Somewhere Over the RainbowWhat a Wonderful World that has found its way onto ads movies and radio and enjoys an immense popularity worldwide
bull Jim Beloffrsquos book on the ukulele and the resulting rise of Flea Market Music website and ukulele community forum
bull The emergence of YouTube and the popularity of the presentation of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro and his adoption by Sony
bull The Mighty Uke movie by Tony and Margie Coleman of Canada that features players and groups from many countries and has been shown worldwide to great acclaim
bull The attention paid to ukulele performers by National Public Radio and much later by mainstream media
bull The proliferation of ukulele manufacturers worldwide
One result of this new popularity is the sudden interest of successful guitar players in the ukulele Although Beatle George Harrison always favored the ukulele and never shied away from saying so numerous closet ukulele players have emerged now that it is ldquosafe to do so or have taken their skills to the instrument for the first time Members of rock bands from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to Greg Hawkes of The Cars are taking to the stage uke first some admitting that theyrsquove always liked the instrument
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
Younger people are taking to the instrument in droves The fad is feeding on itself and it is no longer unusual to hear it in a movie on the radio in television ads open mics on stage or on street corners Billionaire Warren Buffet and President Barack Obama play uke (to feel good apparently about the other things they do) Today beginning players and established performers share their gigs insights and stories on Facebook and other social forums As in the 1920s today there are hundreds of ukulele manufacturers large small and custom only At the time of this writing (May 2012) there are more than 12000 ukuleles and related items up for auction on ebay
On October 6 2011 at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC activists gathered to protest the illegal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan When the stage was quiet an impromptu jam started up among the protestors mdash two banjos a fiddler a harmonica player and three ukuleles There wasnrsquot a guitar in sight The ukulele had moved in as the instrument of choice for peace activists
Community ukulele groups are forming everywhere and performing at retirement and convalescent homes schools fairs festivals weddings and funerals mdash wherever music is needed Some groups just meet to drink and have fun Numerous retirees from the Baby Boom era of WWII former protestors of the Viet Nam era today get their jollies with a ukulele group Often the old timer groups are peppered with youngsters keen on bringing a different and more strident energy to the ukulele outlet Yuppies pay big bucks to attend ukulele campouts
There might be a downside to the present ukulele popularity As an activist who has used the ukulele for 50 years to express his politics loves broken hearts humor sadness family fondness and philosophical and historical
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan
insights I hope that this new love of uke by the masses is a better way to fight for universal health a clean and live-able planet clean and accurate elections mdash and peace and not a frivolous substitute for civil endeavors I have elected however to live the remainder of my life as though this Third Great Ukulele Craze is destined to outshine those of 1915-1935 and the 1950s be worldwide and jauntily bring peace harmony and justice to this otherwise beleaguered planet
copy2012 Dan Scanlan
Random Thoughts on the UkuleleThe ukulele is truly a world instrument Born of two Celtic parents who married in Honolulu Hawaii it travelled the world with King David Kalakaua the first of the worldrsquos monarchs to circumnavigate the globe He played the ukulele and most likely had it with him
In 1915 the ukulele took the American music world by storm and college kids vaudeville performers movie stars and crooners chose it Sheet music had ukulele chord diagrams You could buy one for a few dollars Doughboys took them to WWI and GIs to WWII in their knapsacks It flared in popularity during the earliest days of television
Utah Phillips once said ldquoYou canrsquot be mad at someone whorsquos playing a ukulelerdquo Others have said likewise including this author ldquoI can get away with singing the most radical political stuff when Irsquom playing the ukerdquo
Thatrsquos the thing about the uke mdash itrsquos happy itrsquos expressive itrsquos easy to play It helps you get your ya-yas out your feelings hopes dreams loves regrets Itrsquos a world class tool
mdash Dan Scanlan