Ukulele Ike

[Kaleponi Craig]

Anybody here a fan of the great Cliff Edwards, aka Ukulele Ike? I'm a ukulele player myself and discovered Ukulele Ike when I first picked up this little four stringed beauty. Ukulele Ike was one of the most popular recording artists in the 20s and 30s, although he was best known as the voice of Jimminy Cricket in 'Pinnochio'. Check out the following websites if you are interested...

http://www.redhotjazz.com/cliffedwards.html

and my own website on the great uke player...

http://www.geocities.com/ukuleleheaven/ukuleleike.html

 

[Matt Deckard]

oooh. I have a good friend who took up the uke when she fell in love with Buster Keaton... We sit around and sing a diddy once in a while.. she needs to learn how to tune the darn thing.

Something you'sd see on college campuses back in the 1920's

tre cool!

Stick with the ukelele.

I've heard of Ike though haven't heard Ike.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Ukelele Ike, I'm happy to say, has been reincarnated ... as a woman.

Her name is Janet Klein, and her band is named "The Parlor Boys". An amazing performer:


http://www.janetklein.com/web/main.htm

http://www.janetklein.com/web/showtimeframeset.htm

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

Ukelele Ike, I'm happy to say, has been reincarnated ... as a woman.

Her name is Janet Klein, and her band is named "The Parlor Boys". An amazing performer:
]

Marc, I"ve seen Janet Klein many times. She plays here at the Northern California Ukulele Festival. She's fantastic...KC

 

[Lauren]

I love the Uke. My grandma knows how to play a song or two. I remember singing Hawaiian songs with her from the 30's when we used to have tea, and I was coloring my coloring books. I picked a few up about 5 or 6 years ago, and have been yearning to master them. I tought myself one song. I used to love riding around my longboard skateboard and playing with it but I got some funny looks

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Lauren, you must see Janet Klein play sometime.

The voice, the gestures, the hair, the clothes ... Miss Klein is a force of nature.

 

[Lauren]

I've actually wanted to for a long while now! My cousin and I really want to go. I hear they play at the Alex, which is where my grandma used to go to see films. My family was in Atwater from the 20's to the 90's. I wish we still had those cute houses!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I've heard of Ike though haven't heard Ike.

Ukelele Ike is playing on "The 1920s Radio Network Live Stream" website right now.

http://www.whro.org/home/html/liveradio/1920s_wma.html

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Never mind ... he finished.

 

[The Captain]

Bill Tapia

I'm so glad to see that there are more ukulele fans here at the lounge. One of my favorites is Bill Tapia, who has been a performing musician for decades - he played the opening of the Royle Hawaiian Hotel in 1927! He taught Shirley Temple and Clark Gable how to play. If you ever see a copy of the first ukulele instruction book (circa 1930s) that's his hands in the photographs showing chord fingerings. His life is very interesting; he played in blacked out ball rooms during WWII. All-in-all, a great performer. Try "TROPICAL SWING", a super CD!

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

Yes, Captain, BIll Tapia is wonderful and is the last of his generation. I saw him at Uke Fest West in Santa Cruz a couple of years ago and he told us all sorts of great stories.

For all of you interested in the ukulele, its history, great players and uke makers, please check out my ukulele website, http://www.ukuleleheaven.com. My interests are mostly Hawaiian, but there is some info on the players of the Golden Era on the mainland as well...KC

 

[The Wolf]

two ukelele comments

The DVD of "The JerK' shows how to play "Tonight You Belong to Me" on uke as a special feature.
On the "Concert for George" DVD I found out that George Harrison loved to play the ukelele. He would travel with two in his suitcase in case he visited someone and wanted to play a duet and they didn't have a ukelele. The DVD also includes Paul McCartney playing the uke while singing "Something". The show closes with Joe Brown playing a touching version of "I'll See You in My Dreams" on the ukelele.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[John in Covina]

There is a Huell Howser episode where he visits an adult education class at some school (maybe Orange county) that has Ukelele classes. It is great fun.
Visiting with Huell Howser show # 732:eusa_clap

see here:
http://www.calgold.com/visiting/Default.asp?Series=700&Show=329

 

[Novella]

Cliff Edwards is great! I just started listening to him awhile ago when I stumbled on this site:

http://great-song-stylists-uk.com/Cliffedwards/Cliffedwards.htm

There are quite a few songs of his posted to listen to.

 

[Trickeration]

My husband is also a uke player (though he plays upright bass in a big band at the moment). He's been at it for a while now. I couldn't tell you all of his favorite players, he listens to many and is often poking around the redhotjazz site, among others.

Recently, my husband and I drove to Vegas to buy an older Kamaka uke he found a guy selling for $120. It's in great shape, and sounds wonderful. I've been picking up vintage uke music books for him when I find them, both for the sake of collecting and for him to learn more songs. He takes his ukelele to his Coast Guard cutter when he has duty, too. They have a new guy on board who's from Hawaii and also plays uke, and another guy has since gotten hooked as well.

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

My husband is also a uke player (though he plays upright bass in a big band at the moment).

A uke and an upright bass, now that's playing both ends of the spectrum!...KC

 

[K by the bay]

I have a cd you might like called Listen To The Banned" 20 risque songs of the 20's and 30's. Very tame for this day and age though. It has a number of ukulele songs on it. Cliff Edwards, Art Fowler, and George Formby and their ukuleles.

 

[skwerl-hat]

ukulele ike was great one of my favorite singers
its to bad he came to such a bad end.

i played and owned an unusual bass uke for awhile althought it needed tuning after every song. I ended up accidently leaving it in the sun which melted the glue and it came apart:eusa_doh:

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Cliff Edward's story is very sad, when I read about it. In his later years he was in debt many times, and endlessly walked around Disney Studios, just to find some voice work, or just work to begin with.

Here's a short entry on Wikipedia.org

"In the 1950s and early 1960s he made a number of appearances on the Mickey Mouse Club television show, in addition to reprising his Jiminy Cricket voice for various Disney shorts.
Edwards was broke in his later years, living in a home for indigent actors, often spending his days hanging around the Walt Disney Studios to be available any time he could get voice work and being taken to lunch by animators to whom he told stories of his days in Vaudeville.
Sadly, he had disappeared from the public eye at the time of his death as a charity patient at the Virgil Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood, California. His body was initially unclaimed and donated to the University of California, Los Angeles medical school, but when Walt Disney Productions found out about this, they purchased the corpse and paid for burial."

I saw a movie with the man himself in it, "The Royal Rodeo". It was a kind of neat movie, and he does his kazoo sound in the end, pretty basic plot, though.

 

[Warden]

On this day in 1961: 'Ukulele king' Formby dies. See BBC news report here.

See a You Tube clip here

The King is dead.

Harry