Wellington International Ukulele Trio – Blue Smoke (Chords)
March 1, 2009
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – Blue Smoke (Chords)
Lest you think ukuleles and New Zealand are a new phenomenon, the first record entirely produced in New Zealand, Blue Smoke, was a uke-featuring hapa haole song recorded when the technology was just reaching New Zealand way back in 1993 (you can read the full, and more accurate, story here). And a slimmed down version of the WIUO recorded it at the Ukulele Cabaret
Suggested Strumming Pattern
Blue Smoke is in waltz time (3/4) so here’s a strumming pattern that suits it:
d – d u d u
New Zealand is a bit backward, but we were making records before 1993! Blue Smoke is 1949, but there were plenty of records recorded and pressed before then; this was just the first completely NZ-made record from start to finish. It’s a lovely song.
Don’t listen to him, folks. It’s definitely 1993.
haha!
Oh no. Punk’d.
I’ve been trying to learn some songs from a guitar book, by just playing the chords for the uke, but I don’t know how to play chords where it’s something over something, like E/D# or G/B. No ukulele chord website will tell me, and my ukulele book doesn’t know. Can you help me out Woody??
Thanks!
Rukuleleth: They’re slash chords. E/D# would be Emaj7 and G/B is just a G chord.
Is that Bret from Flight of The Conchords
It most certainly is Bret; he’s a founder member of the WIUO, but nowadays only gets to jet in for special occasions.
Here’s a real simple intro for Blue Smoke based on the one you can hear in the original recording. Sorry if my tabbing skills are rubbish but hopefully you can get the gist of it.
5 – 2 – 5 – -7 – 3 -7 – 5 – 2 – - 0 – - – - – - – - – - 2 – 0 – 2 – 0 – - – 0 -5
– - 3 – - – - – - -0 – - – - – - -3 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 2 – 3 – - – -0 – - – – 3 – 2
– - 2 – - – - – - -0 – - – - – - – - – 1 – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -2
– - 0 – - – - – - -0 – - – - – - – - – 0 – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -2
Pozza: Thanks for that. I got told off by Gemma for tabbing up this version, so I might redo it with the new version.