It's a Miracle, You Fool...

Ukulelia's resident Multi-Instrumental Genius and Master of Making Everything Look Effortless, Rob Bourassa, offers this original tune. Check out Gary Zimnicki's sweet Maccaferri tenor at 2:25.

Island Ukulele Of Kauai

One of my students has an Island Ukulele, and I never knew they had a website. Now I do. Sweet instruments built on Kauai. Link

Beansprout Musical Instruments

Aaron and Nicole Keim's new Beansprout uke site is up. Check it out.  Link

Ukulele Sighting

We just saw Jordan Peele's Get Out. There's a little ukulele sequence. And it ain't pretty.

Great film, though. Highly recommended. Link

Ukulele on a Wire, 1929

From the amazing Moving Image Research Collections at the University of South Carolina, here are outtakes from a 1929 Fox Movietone newsreel showing tightrope walker Jimmy Terry walking 39 (45?) stories up between two buildings in Chicago.

Jimmy plays the ukulele and sings "I ain't gonna walk ropes anymore" to the tune of It Ain't Gonna Rain No' Mo' at around 7:30. Keep watching for the moment when he drops the uke.

The full Movietone newsreel plays from 10:30 on.

Link to Video

Image of Jimmy Terry's walk from Modern Mechanix, January, 1930

Real Ukulele Hero

98 year old Tom Boardman crafted a ukulele out of Red Cross boxes and telegraph wire when he was a prisoner of war in Thailand during WWII.
A TV program(me) featuring an interview is scheduled for this weekend. If we find video, we'll update this post.

Link

Popuband Smart Ukulele Exceeds Crowdfunding Goal in One Day

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact on the popularity of ukuleles this automated teaching instrument will have. As a teacher, I'm conflicted. Just so long as they don't promote bad habits that I have to un-teach. Or maybe I should look at that as job security!

Watch out guitarists. They're coming for you next. Heh, heh. Link

Irish Ukulele Tabs and Chords

From Al O'Wood at McUke Hunt. For the wearin' of the green. Link

Crazy in Love (ukulele and ruler version)

The UOGB's Will Grove-White has a spiffy version of Beyonce's Crazy in Love. Link

MEDITATIONS FOR (and on) UKULELE

New workshops (and soon-to-be-released book) from Daniel Ward:

For the last year, Daniel has been writing “studies”.  If you are someone who has dipped their toe into classical music, you know that these can sometimes stand alone as solo performance pieces (think Villalobos) or be exercises to strengthen your playing (like Hanon for piano). Daniel’s split the difference.  They are simple pieces to play in loops, beautiful to listen to, calming and centering to play. Students and festival workshop participants have been enthusiastic about them, so he’s working on putting them together in a book.

Read more about upcoming workshops Here

Obituary For Lyle Ritz

The Honolulu Star Examiner has a nice remembrance of jazz ukulele legend, Lyle Ritz. Link

UPDATE: Here is a story on Hawaii Public Radio. Link

Aloha, Lyle Ritz

Word reached us today that ukulele legend Lyle Ritz has died. Until we can find a fitting obituary, here is a link to his Wikipedia page. Lyle Ritz - Wikipedia

Tiny Tim Was a Hockey Fan

Who knew? And a Maple Leafs fan, at that. Link

Ukuleles at the South Pole!

Check out this video tour of the scientific station at the South Pole. At 2:19 there is a tour of the music room, which features at least three ukuleles.

We see a blue Dolphin Makala, a mystery tenor and a Vita-Uke model of unknown make. Maybe an Ohana? But it would be super cool if an original Vita-Uke was being strummed at the bottom of the world.