Tonight sees the Eurovision Song Contest. Be prepared for plenty of cheesy numbers; sarcastic commentary & the usual regional block voting! Here is Jeff Meechai’s cover of the UK’s 1967 winning entry from Sandie Shaw, Puppet On A String:
Category Archives: Uke History & Trivia
Uke Tubes
Today would have been the 74th birthday of Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien (better known as Dusty Springfield). So here is Richard G performing his arrangement of the Bacharach & David number The Look of Love on his 1920s Gibson:
UkeTubes
As today would have been George Harrison’s seventieth birthday, here’s a video from his final album Brainwashed where he’s ukeing with a few pals on the Harold Arlen & Ted Koehle number Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea:
Mighty Uke – UK TV Screening
The 2010 film, Mighty Uke, which travels the world to discover why so many people of different nations, cultures, ages and musical tastes are turning to the ukulele, is being shown at 9pm Tues 29 Jan & 1.30am & 9am Wed 30 Jan on Sky Arts 1 (for those without satellite, the DVD is also available from Amazon & other on-line retailers).
Here’s the official trailer as a taster:
PLUC Xmas Weekend Workout
Ukulele Club Christmas (Photo credit: Simon Scarfe)
As a Christmas treat, we offer you two festive fun quizzes for the price of one:
1) Guess from which songs do the ‘Christmases’ come (NB If you get enough questions right you’ll win a surprise that can make any song into a Christmas tune!). I managed 10/12, so see if you can better that.
2) And here’s Ukulele Hunt’s annual puzzler – the Ukulele Christmas Quiz 2012 - which I’m just about to enjoy doing. There are also links to previous year’s quizzes.
Jeanette
Other quizzes include: PLUC Weekend Workout – EarMaster; PLUC Weekend Workout – On-line Ear Trainer; PLUC Weekend Workout – Speak Ukulele Challenge!; PLUC Weekend Workout – memrise on-line courses; PLUC Weekend Workout – Theta Music Trainer; PLUC Weekend Workout – Flashcard Machine; PLUC Weekend Workout – Music Reading Knowledge; A Question Of Uke – TV & Movie Themes
UkeTubes
Number One in the UK Singles Chart on 15 Dec 1979 was Pink Floyd‘s Another Brick In The Wall (Part II). This Ukulollo version has two ukes, a cajon & an egg-shaker. Play along with Richard G’s chords.
UkeTubes
UK Number One on 13 Nov 1968 was Hugo Montenegro’s cover version of, arguably, Ennio Morricone’s best known composition - the theme tune to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. It was the first instrumental to top the charts since Foot Tapper from The Shadows, five years previously.
Here’s a version of the Spaghetti Western’s theme by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain:
Ukecast – History Of The Ukulele
Ukulele ad in the U.S. mainland newspaper (Photo credit: UH Manoa Library)
After the visit from our Australian uking friends, here’s a podcast from the Blue Mountains Ukulele Group’s founder, Steve Roberts – History of The Ukulele - recorded in Feb 2012 as part of a series called Self Improvement Wednesday.
You can either download it or listen on-line, plus there’s a short quiz on the site to try afterwards.
Jeanette
Tin Pan Ukuleles
We’ve realised that many of the songs we bring along to club nights are old standards. The last time we brought in a more ‘modern’ batch of tunes (actually ’70s & ’80s numbers!), we were requested to dig out some Irving Berlin, so I was researching numbers written nearly a century ago.
Toot Toot Tootsie – played by Rebecca Rice as part of her Public Domain Music Project (YouTube Channel):
Perhaps because of the different eras when ukuleles have been popular, it seems that Tin Pan Alley numbers are very suited to the instrument. Regular reader Tom Peters (who writes the Asperger’s Ukulele blog), often performs & discusses these songs. His recent articles have included renditions of Honey (1929 - Seymore Simons, Haven Gillespie & Richard A Whiting) and Ain’t Misbehavin’ (also 1929 - Fats Waller, Harry Brooks & Andy Razaf).
Jeanette
