The ukulele is a fretted stringed instrument that looks like a four-stringed guitar. It is most commonly associated with Hawaii, where its name translates as ‘leaping flea’, but there are no other string instruments native to Hawaii and the ukulele in fact has its roots in Portugal. Origins of the Ukulele Three Portuguese instrument makers arrived in Hawaii in 1879 ...
pairs). Portugal’s little four-stringed cavaquinho travelled to the Portuguese colonies of Madeira (there known as a braguinha), the Azores and Cape Verde, and onward to Hawaii to become the ukulele, and to South America to become the armadillo-backed charango. In Iberia, however, there are also lutes with bodies of pear or teardrop shape. In Spain there is ...
heavyweight. Nevertheless, its flexibility and clarity of articulation ensure that in the right context it remains a hugely enjoyable instrument to listen to. Introduction | Stringed Instruments Instruments | Ukulele | Stringed ...
at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, Ravi Shankar received a rapturous ovation after several minutes, only to explain that he had in fact just been tuning up. Ukulele The ukulele, identified so closely with Hawaii, arrived on the island literally out of the blue, on a boat that arrived in Honolulu in 1879. One of ...
Rock, jazz, soul; each of these genres, while containing a multiplicity of various offshoots, is defined by some kind of unifying theme. But this miscellaneous section, as any record collector will know, is where everything else ends up. Most of the styles within this ‘genre’ have little in common save the fact that they do ...
a producer, engineer, label executive and A&R man without peer. Chester Burton ‘Chet’ Atkins was born on in June 1924 in Luttrell, Tennessee. He started out on ukulele, later adopting fiddle, and traded his brother Lowell an old pistol for a guitar when he was nine. Self-taught, he became an accomplished guitarist while still in ...
‘King of the Surf Guitar’ Dick Dale was born Richard Monsour in Boston, Massachusetts in 1937. Dale learned to play drums, ukulele and trumpet before taking up the guitar, inspired by country music. His first break in music was winning an Elvis Presley soundalike contest. Dale began playing guitar in clubs, solo at first, but later ...
Blues guitarist Johnny Winter (b. 1944) was born in Beaumont, Texas. Albino and cross-eyed from birth, Johnny showed a precocious talent for music, taking up the clarinet at the age of five and switching to guitar after a brief flirtation with the ukulele. Inspired by bluesmen like B.B. King, Muddy Waters and Bobby Bland, he ...
as much for his playing as for his composing and vocal work with his occasional partners Crosby, Stills & Nash. Born in Toronto, Canada, Young got a ukulele from his father for Christmas in 1958. In 1960, Young moved to Winnipeg with his mother. A poor student, he dropped out of high school to concentrate on ...
today, Walker’s style remains an essential element of lead-guitar playing. Born in Linden, Texas, Walker grew up in a musical household in Dallas, learning guitar, ukulele, banjo, violin and piano. Blind Lemon Jefferson was a family friend and Lonnie Johnson played nearby. By the age of 16, Walker was earning a living as ...
Oceania covers a vast portion of the world’s surface, and each island or archipelago is separated by thousands of miles of Pacific, yet these distinct cultures share one source: the southward migration of seafarers from Southeast Asia, who arrived on the single landmass that was New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania approximately 50,000 years ago. It would ...
Formby Sr., had been one of the most successful music hall comedians of the Edwardian era, made the transition into the mass-media age with huge success. Formby’s unorthodox ukulele playing, allied to goofy humour and chirpy Lancastrian tones, made him a nationwide star of stage, radio and film. The tuneful simplicity and saucy undertones of Formby’s ...
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 22 March, 1943, George Benson is perhaps the best example of this. His stepfather was a musician who taught him to play the ukulele and guitar, and after being enticed by the jazz sounds of saxophonist Charlie Parker and guitarist Grant Green, he decided to become a jazz guitarist. He emerged as ...
the 1970s. Although Indonesia dominates, the label the ‘Manila sound’ bestows musical credibility on any band. Indonesian pop has a pedigree that stretches back centuries, to the kroncong ukulele bands, and often swampsits neighbours. In the 1970s, Latin music arrived (dangdut), turning Rhoma Irama into a regional star. Later, the Jugala Orchestra, from western Java ...
his roots were in Texas. Born on 28 May, 1910 in Linden, Texas, the young T-Bone learned all the stringed instruments – including mandolin, violin, ukulele, upright bass and banjo – but gravitated toward guitar. As a teenager, he often served as ‘lead boy’ for the Texas acoustic blues master Blind Lemon Jefferson, ...
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