Friday, July 07, 2006

Arts observation - One for Brad

When my friend Brad spoke lovingly of ukulele music, I scoffed, I laughed, I thought "You've got to be kidding me."

But youtube has shown me that Brad is right on this one - or that it actually is possible to make good and even incredible music on a ukulele.

First there is my musical hero, Bruce Springsteen playing the uke (He's playing a song from his first album):

Here's a rock version (sans uke):


But this is amazing. Jason Shimabukuro is playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" I hope to see him at a Borders store next month here in Chicago

So Brad,
I take back my laughter, my scoffing, and my questioning. I shall once again dine on crow. I've learned so many ways to serve it.

2 comments:

Rick said...

Hi Stan,

In his 2002 tours as well as the memorial "COncert for George", Paul McCartney played a tribute to George: "Something" - on the uke. It was really very, very sweet and touching. APparently George was a great afficianado of the uke and those who played it. It was much simpler than what Jake does with it, just a simple strumming. but there you are... I haven't looked at the Bruce recording yet. I did see an online clip of him doing "The Daring young man on the Flying Trapeze" which was great. And amazon has fantastic archival footage of Bruce doing "Born to Run" in London, back around 1975 or 6 - linked under the "Born to Run" special comemmorative edition (if you can't find it there write me and I'll send a link).

Regards, Rick

Unknown said...

Thanks Rick,

Thanks to youtube, I've been finding a lot of Bruce footage. Very addictive, this youtube.

I wasn't a huge George Harrison fan, but the Concert for George was great.