Masters of their art, each signature on my Little White Uke! Who's there so far?

My Little Blue Uke (sky-blue Mahalo, taken everywhere) has a Little White counterpart - the one I won (so proud!) in a songwriting competition hosted by one of the Seasonistas on the Ukulele Undergound Forum last Christmas. I generally keep it as my D uke and it comes out occasionally.

Just before I left home for GNUF (Grand Northern Ukulele Festival)on Friday, I had a brainwave... so many of my ukulele heroes would be there... why not ask them all to sign it? And I did!

Almost all of the signatures on here belong to players featured on this blog more than once.

What they all have in common is that I love their music and they are indeed masters of their art. And all are quite different.

I regret that I didn't catch Zoe Bestel to sign it. She just gets better and better. Her voice is ethereal and her delivery will break your heart. She is featured on this blog more than once, as a singer who plays ukulele and writes much of her own material.

The work of both Mike Hind and Ben Rouse is pretty new to me. But Mike Hind (AKA Uncle Elvis) just owned the stage during his set - he did indeed hold the audience in the palm of his hand ... and Ben Rouse supporting him on bass (as he supported others, as well as doing a great set in his own right on uke) was phenomenal, he tore the place up. Such nice fellas, too, both of them. So they are there, kindly gracing my Little White Uke with their signatures.

So who of my known favourites have you spotted? Well... there's Phil Doleman; (music from the 20's and 30's - a great musician and performer - and teacher!) Manitoba Hal, blues uker extraordinaire; Sarah Maisel and Craig Chee, jazz standards and original songs, (soon to be married.... wonderful...) Aaron Keim, (The Quiet American) - all-style fingerpickin and all-round super-duper musician; Peter Moss, long-time virtuoso player on wooden uke and banjo-uke, Mike Warren, exemplary Formby player who plays a mean wooden uke too... young Michael Adcock, who is fast making a name for himself on the uke scene, and last but not least, Mike Hind and Ben Rouse.

I have room for a few more.

I know who I want on that uke. Superb musicians and entertainers all. And there's a space on my wall where it will hang for a while and inspire me to...

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! That's the only way to go, folks... the only way to go.