Daddystovepipe has released his follow-up to Fingerpicking Blues ebook. You can pick up a copy on his website. I’ve been working my way through it and, just like volume one, there’s a tone of stuff to cut your teeth on.
An interesting article looking at ukulele sales. It includes chats with Mike ‘Kala’ Upton and Joe ‘Kanilea’ Souza and some interesting sales charts.
Mark Nelson – he of Fingerstyle Solos for ‘Ukulele fame has started putting up slack key ukulele video lessons (you can watch the first installment here) to accompany the release of his new slack key ukulele album.
James May doesn’t know anything about ukuleles either.
Amanda Palmer and Stephin Merritt hook up for some halloween fun on The Late Late Show.
Pictures: Dent May when he still played ukulele, girl group.
Yuval has dug up some amusing (now, perhaps not at the time) court cases involving ukuleles:
– Thomason v Thomason – a cautionary tale where buying a cheap ukulele leads to divorce: “At another time he made a present of a ukulele to his daughter and this evoked from his wife a letter which was in evidence and starts: “Cheap Cheap Cheap Scrooge—Humbug If you can’t buy a uke that will hold strings in tune—why don’t you let some one who knows how buy one—* * * ” It continues in the same tone to its conclusion.”
– State v. Haili – is carrying a ukulele probable cause for a search? The police pull over a car, see a ukulele case, search it (without a warrant) and find a gun. They find that, “In the case at bar, we conclude that once the officers saw the.22-caliber casing on the front floor of the car and the ukulele case, a known repository for firearms, there was probable cause to search,” but conclude, “In granting the motion to suppress the contents of the ukulele case, the trial court ruled that the warrantless search of the ukulele case was unconstitutional.[1] We affirm.”
– Tex Smith, the Harmonica Man,v, Arthur Godfrey et al., Defendants. – Arthur Godfrey was discussing which ukulele to buy on his TV show (those were the days) and says of Tex Smith’s $2.99 uke (those were the days), “to sell the instrument as a ukelele might not be contrary to law but that people who did it should be jailed.” You’ve got to think Godfrey had a point. The ukulele had painted on frets.
– French American Reeds v. Park Plastics – the makers of plastic Islander ukuleles sue the makers of Flamingo ukuleles claiming they’re so similar customers will confuse the two. They decided, “The “Islander” sales volume of 136,000 before the “Flamingo” appeared is not such as to indicate that plaintiff’s plastic ukelele had captured the musical imagination of the country.” Zing! Judge for yourself.
The article on uke sales is fascinating. Such astonishing growth. Can it be sustained, or is it just a fad?
It’s amusing how Joe Souza presents the term UAS as if he’s the only one who has ever said it. I’m surprised the reporter didn’t find more instances of it.
The article also contained lots of speculation on what inspires players to take up the instrument. For me it was neither an affection for Hawaii nor an admiration of popular musicians. It was seeing my five-year-old nephew pounding away on one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Story-Woodys-Round-Authentic-Guitar/dp/B004BJZ9XE