Ukulele legend and ragtime revivalist, Ian Whitcomb has died at 78. He made a huge contribution to keeping alive the ukulele and the music of the Jazz Age. If you want to know a lot more about him, his friend and collaborator Janet Klein reminisced with her band about him in this video.
Whitcomb had an incredible career. He broke through in the the 60s with the hit You Turn Me On which led to tours with The Kinks and The Stones. He followed that up with a recording of the 1916 song Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go?. This set off a decades-long career of playing music from the 1910s and 20s and releasing books (most notably Ukulele Heroes). His career encompassed playing on Carson and talking to Google about the ukulele. His encyclopaedic knowledge of the era led to him making an album of songs recreating the music played on the Titanic, Music As Heard On The Fateful Voyage, which earning him a Grammy nomination.
Whitcomb recalled a discussion with The Turtles who said, “‘Ian, those songs that you sing are really funny, why don’t you record them?’ So I did… and I’ve been recording that kind of song ever since, and so my career has gone backwards.”
Watch
– Craig Chee and Sarah Maisel are running a free online uke fest on Saturday including performances from James Hill, Kalei Gamiao, Gracie Terzian and many more. You can find out more about it on their website.
– A music teacher sings about online teaching.
Learn
– If you’re as old and decrepit as I am, you might remember player and tabber UkuleleDav. He has a new site Uke Can Play the Melody.
– Today (Friday) Choan Galvez is offering his albums and tabs on a “pay what you like” basis.
– In case you missed it, yesterday I launched five free tab collections to keep you busy during lockdown.
Patreon
If you’ve noticed more tabs being uploaded here than usual this month, that’s down to the support of Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers. We’ve just tipped over 100 patrons which is fantastic support and I’m very grateful for it. So a big thanks to all the Patrons. And double thanks go to April’s Tenor backers:
– Douglas.
– Fiona Keane.
– Joseph Freeman.
– Nancy.
– Pauline Leblanc.
– Potatoemagic.
– Trevor Mccravy.
Patreon posts in the last month include:
– Amazing Grace.
– The Money Heist/La Casa de Papel theme.
– Vagrant Song from the game Pyre.
– And April’s exclusive for Concert level and up backers: Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine.
