A 2008 visit to the Ukeshack!

1 Tennessee Local is by Jimmy Dupre, Edward G. Nelson and Steve Nelson
I learned this song from a tape my former manager (before I realized I was un-maneageble) Genial Johnny Simmons made for me of hillbilly and country material. I believe the recording was Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Here we started with track of me singing and playing on an eight string Kamaka taro patch uke (pocket Leadbelly!) with Matt Weiner on bass, Steve James playing bottleneck on his wooden National Reso-Rocket. Steve overdubbed a resonator mandolin part.

2 Suitcase Breakdown is by Bobby Leecan and Robert Cooksey. Leecan and Cooksey are one of my favorite sources for tunes. Here I'm playing Robert Cooksey's harmonica part on ukulele, and Lani Kurnik is playing guitar following Bobby Leecan's string part. Matt is on bass.

3 High Society A.J. Piron and Clarence Williams are credited with this song and out of the many recordings of it, I mostly listened to the Clarence Williams one. Here I'm playing metal uke, Matt is bowing his bass and Craig Flory and Hans Teuber are on clarinets.
I have long thought that the metal Ron Phillips ukulele and guitars I play would sound great with horns, so I asked Hans Teuber to make me a couple arrangements.
I feel so lucky to know Hans-I first saw him playing with John Miller at a tiny show in 1999, and I asked him to play on "Space Needle" on my 2000 release "X-Rey Guitar" a tune which remains one of my favorites (I mean I have it on my own i-pod fergawdsakes). Hans has been playing a weekly gig for the last year or so about two blocks from my house in Seattle, so I've been able to listen to him in detail. Very stimulating! Especially when my next door neighbor and former bandmate in The Yes Yes Boys, Craig Flory sits in.

4 Thank You Bird by me and a bird. This was recorded in Australia one hot summer day in January 2007, at Sound Level in Ultimo, Sydney. My friend Dom Turner, the reigning king of Australian acoustic blues, is playing bottleneck tuned down to open C on his 12 string and Steve James played his National resonator mandolin. I'm playing a Ron Phillips mini-parlor resonator guitar. No uke! it's a trick.
This tune came from an amazing bird song I heard while staying in Balmain, another neighborhood in Sydney, at the old Nurses Home (now a bed and breakfast). Every morning about 7am I woke to a bird singing the first section of this tune. I never saw the bird, and whistleing the tune to people just made them think I was a nut. But another musician staying at there confirmed the tune I heard. I wrote the B and C sections, but the A is all bird.

5 Up The Country Robert Hicks: Barbecue Bob Just me and my concert sized resonator uke, tuned ACF#B. Barbecue of the soul-that's Robert Hicks.

6 New Oldtime Hula Blues The Hula Blues is one of those catchy, vapid '20s tunes that make your feet want to dance and your brain want to cringe. I wrote my own version, and asked the Northwest's best hillbilly singer and killer rhythm guitar player Jo Miller to help me sing it.

7 Oh Lizzie This is from the playing of Johnny Dodds, accompanied on the orginal by Lil Hardin Armstrong. Craig Flory is over the top, just like Johnny. Matt is on bass.

8 Keep It Clean From the playing of Charley Jordan, a St Louis guitarist of the '20s and '30s. I'm singing and playing resonator uke, with Steve James playing bottleneck guitar in open G tuning, capoed to B.

9 Land of Calypso was written and performed by Rafael De Leon, the Roaring Lion, who made his debut in 1927 and was one of the top Calypsonians all through the 30s and 40s, along with Lord Invader, Atilla and the Growling Tiger. This song explains, in typically erudite calypsonian fashion the origins of itself. Here's another verse I just learned
Excitement reached such a tempo
When I said that the calypso
Is an ancient French ballad
That was adapted by Trinidad
A fellow said if you please, it was sung
By Espinosa and Socrates
And Hannibal sang a calypso
When crossing the Alps to meet Scipio...

10 You Run and Tell Another great Charley Jordan song, again with Steve James on bottleneck, this time in open D tuning, to play with the resonator uke in D.

11 Sideman As smart as any Calypsonian from days of yore, Dave Frishberg wrote this excellent depiction of the perfect jazz life.Matt Weiner and I are the rhythm section while Mike Bristow aka Mr P.I.B. takes the electrified uke solo.

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