Ben Smith and His Uke

Here's a new (old) one for me. I'd not heard of Ben Smith before, but here he is, playing a song he co-wrote, "I'm Looking for a Union Sweetheart."

I haven't located the sheet music for this chestnut yet. But here's a cover that features Smith as a performer:

Now I have a wee suspicion that this is not Ben playing the uke. The label reads "Ben Smith and His Uke." But here's a recording from the same year (1925) featuring May Singhi Breen on ukulele: "You Gave All Your Kisses to Somebody Else" (It's mistakenly listed as "What a Life.

What do you think? Are both recordings May?

Ernest Kaai's Hawaiian Troubadours in New Zealand, 1927

Here's a postcard from 'ukulele legend Ernest Ka'ai's tour of New Zealand in 1927. According to the National Library of New Zealand:

A night in Honolulu". Town Hall, Greytown. Tuesday November 22 [1927]

The troupe appears to have visited the Wellington area in November 1927. The Ephemera collection also contains a programme for a performance at Wellington in April 1925, but this postcard is 1927, based on a perpetual calendar." 

  

Link to image.

Here's a link to the cover of a program from an earlier date at the Grand Opera House in Wellington. 

Apparently Ka'ai spent quite a bit of time in NZ. Here he's quoted with regard to a 1911 tour. Link

And a portrait from the same year:

MR ERNEST KAAI. 

Director of the Royal Hawaiian Concert and Musical Organisation, 

and the finest .Mandolin and Ukulele player in the world.