I’m a bit confused about what Washburn are playing at. They used to make ukes under the name ‘Lyon and Healy’, then they syphoned off the ukuleles to their ‘folk instrument’ section Oscar Schmidt. And now they’re selling ukuleles as Washburn Lyon. And they seem to be exactly the same as the Oscar Schmidt ukuleles. If there’s a difference between that uke and the Oscar Schmidt koa, I can’t spot it.
You don’t see many leopard skin Flukes around. I suspect those bleeding-heart liberals don’t think it’s worth killing leopards to make ukuleles. Damn hippies.
Daddy Stovepipe’s bluesy ukulele videos are a favourite of mine and he’s recently tabbed up one of his tunes. So I took the opportunity to throw a few questions at him.
What’s your musical history? How did you come by the uke?
I started playing blues fingerpicking guitar when I was 16 years old; I mostly learned from records and with the help of the Stefan Grossman tablature books.
The reissue label Yazoo, specialised in blues music recorded between 1926-32 (the golden age of country blues) also had an lp by Ukulele Ike. I liked the album but never went any further. It’s only after starting with my Youtube channel, a few years ago, that I came to know uke players like my fellow countrymen Winin’ Boy and Ukulelezaza. Winin’ Boy is one of my subscribers and I always visit their channel to get to know them. Surfing the internet did the rest; your website proved very helpful to get to know the ukulele world. Same goes for your 101 book.
Who are you big musical inspirations?
Mainly the “old blues guys” who recorded in the 20-30ies; men like Lonnie Johnson, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, the inevitable Robert Johnson of course, etc.
What are your top tips for playing ukulele blues?
Listening to the music you want to play, is half the battle.
So far I only focused on keys like C and F as you can use the open top-string often and there is a lot of material in those keys. I found that the more jazzy blues by players like Blind Blake or Mississippi John Hurt works best for the ukulele.
Do you have any favourite blues licks?
Bending the 3rd and 4rd fret of the second string, when playing in F comes to mind,or playing the 3rd string fretted at the 3rd fret simultaneously with the open 2nd when playing in C.
How do you approach playing blues on a uke differently from blues on a guitar?
I approach it as a guitar with less strings. My thumb plays a monotonic bass on the 4th string or an alternating bass between strings 4 and 3. With the alternating bass I sometimes get in trouble if the 3rd string is needed for a melody note but then I simply quit the alternating bass pattern.
What I especially like about the ukulele is the re-entrant tuning. The sound of the high 4th string really does it for me.
I’ve loved this tune for many years (after hearing Colin Reid’s version of it) so when I found Penguin Cafe barrister Geoffrey Richardson was a uker I decided I had to find a way to play it on the uke. How hard could it be? Five months later…
The first thing you need to do to play this arrangement is tune the g string up to a (so it’s aCEA). This lets me do one of my favourite things on the uke: play the same note on every string then do a bit of very close harmony. The picking pattern for this section is thumb, index, thumb, middle.
In the main section of the tune I’m picking what was the g string with my thumb, the E string with my index finger and the A string with my middle finger. As for the left hand, I use my ring finger on the E string, middle finger for for A string 4th fret and pinkie for the fifth fret. This makes it easier to slide down for the second phrase.
The middle section of the tune (starting at bar 16) is the one I had most problems with. For the picking I’m using the same finger set-up as the previous section but with the thumb covering the G and C strings.
The strumming section was a late addition to the arrangement – I thought it needed something more forceful to finish it off. As I result, I haven’t got this section nailed down as much, so you might have to feel your own way through this section.
This arrangement does miss out a lot of the original. If you can recreate all the swirling strings, you’re a way better player than me. But I have included the two main sections of the piece. The first is a slow waltz and the second a rapid 4/4. The other arrangements I’ve seen miss out the second part – not sure why since it’s much more fun to play. And it’s fairly straight forward – mostly just moving the minor chord shape up and down. The tricky part is the speed so start slowly until you’ve got it under your fingers then build up speed. To give it a bit of variation, I play the first half of this section strumming with my thumb and the second half with my fingers (all down strums in both cases).
Prettiest ukulele this week has to be the Kahiko Concert Flyer.
And ugliest ukes this week have to be the Luna Ukuleles. You have to question the design sensibilities of any company that would use the papyrus font in their logo.
And ukulele I haven’t made my mind up about yet of the week is the Kala Acacia. I haven’t quite come to terms with the open-headstock look and the twirly fret markers are a bit much.
The Kala/EleUke marriage looks to be working well. The new look EleUkes aren’t a whole lot different from the old look but they’re definitely more elegant.
Since I seem to be obsessed with looks this week, cute guy plays ukulele 4 fun.
Ukelear Meltdown – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s foremost ukulele festival – is looking for suggestions on who should be a part of their 2010 event. If you want to suggest yourself or someone else get in touch with them.
MP3s: Good Cop Bad Cop release their, “instrumental ukulele rock opera about the parting of the christian church into the western Roman Catholics and the eastern Greek Orthodox,” (not another one).
In the comments: There was a lot of discussion this week about solid body, electric ukuleles and their relation to guitars both on the Kala solid post (with a contribution from the Wellingtons) and on the RISA post. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and haven’t come to any conclusion on. And Andy has an excellent suggestion for hotels to provide ukulele rental.
