Ukulele Hall of Famer and world’s oldest performing professional musician, Bill Tapia has died at the age of 103. Ukulelists paying their respects include Ralph Shaw, Lil Rev and Bartt. You can read an interview with him on Fretboard Journal and watch a clip from his documentary.
Kimo Hussey present a TV show dedicated to the ukulele. You can watch episode 1 of The Uke Project here and episode 2 here.
Aquila have had to stop making real gut strings due to mad cow disease. Before you panic, it shouldn’t affect their bionylon and nylgut strings (thanks to Zym).
Ian Whitcomb has a new book on the way Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Years (thanks to Ron Hale) And Guitar Muse has seven more books for musicians.
8 necked guitar/bass/ukulele/mandolin.
Thanks to phi for pointing out that tabs for the Jonathan Coulton song I posted last week can be found here.
Jim D’Ville’s ukulele tune is the soundtrack to every cat video.
Molly Lewis recounts playing for Stephen Fry.
In a hurry? Tune your ukulele with a drill.
New releases: The multi-talented Lil Rev has a new album out and a book of poetry on the way, Salwa Azar’s For America, Ariel Rubin’s Big Spoon.
Free Christmas ukulele music: Leftover Cuties, Tricity Vogue, Phredd’s pirate Christmas and Kahiwa’s Christmas down under, Darren Hayman, Steffaloo, The whychristmas? podcast.
No Hawaiian category in the new slimmed down Grammys. But the ukulele is represented in the 2012 nominations list by Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs. My nominations for Ukulele Album of the Year are:
Givers – In Light
Leftover Cuties – Places to Go
Emily Scott – i write letters i never send
Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L
Leave yours in the comments.
So how about cat gut strings? Never a shortage of them, Al. The punk cat next door who comes around and harasses my cat every day would make a great source of strings for my newish yellow Dolphin.
Bill Tapia’s passing generated less attention in ukulele cyberspace than I would have imagined.
Good that you found some more coverage.
Am not about to get caught up in the Hawaiian Grammy issue again. I will say that Daniel Ho gets a good write-up in issue 2 of Kamuke. And whatever people think of Eddie’s album, it’s great PR for our instrument.
Haven’t heard any of your albums, but I imagine that “Jon Braman Band – You And Me” could stand with them in quality.