Rachel E Manke with Just What We Want!

Talking about writing original songs on ukulele, here's one just written by Rachel E Manke, one of my favourite ukulele artistes! A three chord song - always a treat to learn and play - I IV V7... (or here, G, C, D7)



I love the sentiment there - if anyone understands just what matters in this life, Rachel does! And she knows how to put it over - with confidence and great style! Search the tag cloud at the bottom for more posts on Rachel... she's the bees' knees....

Thanks for dropping in... do come back now...

Other Duties As Assigned - Rachel Manke talks about her first album!

I've been a fan of Rachel Manke ever since I first dropped across a Youtube video that she had done - I posted it here, at the end of March. It's clear that Rachel had quite a following, and at last she has a CD, "Other Duties As Assigned", out just a few days ago. It's wonderful. It's full of the sort of 20's and 30's music I like, as well as a taste of something different to give a bit of extra spice, but - she has made these songs very much her own...

I asked Rachel to tell me her uke story - and this is what she said.


"I've been playing uke since 1999. Always thought it'd be fun to try. The personal joke was that Y2K would make us all nomads and a portable instrument might be a good thing to have post apocalypse.

I bought a $25 Hilo at the local store. Plastic fretboard, Hawaii decal, etc. Along with it I picked up one of Jumpin' Jim's early books and a Roy Smeck method book. Not long after I met up with a group not far away (this is in Rhode Island at the time) who gathered every month or so for beer, pretzels and ukes. This was at the home of Dave Wasser and Sue Abbotson who were among the founders of the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum, which ran Uke Expos in the late 90's early 00's. It was a much smaller uke world then.

Through all that I met Joel Eckhaus (student of Roy Smeck) at one of these expos and I discovered the sort of uke playing that I wanted to do. At the time I was living about 4 hours south of where Joel was. He'd offered to have me come up for a lesson and I wasn't sure about driving 4 hours for a lesson. Thing is, the weekend of this festival was Sept 2001...days before Sept 11th. That fateful Tuesday I found myself going over the tunes from Joel's workshops over and over again. So, I phoned him up for a lesson...it seemed like a good idea now.

Itturned out that Joel and I are on a similar wavelength, I picked up the Roy Smeck style through an Eckhaus filter very well. We had about 3 lessons all said and done. Joel is the father of my right hand!

Other than that my learning has been a whole lot of watching and listening to other people. Not just uke players. Eventually just about everything I see ends up in some little note here and there. I can't say enough of how important it is to just expose yourself to other players and different styles (even if it's not your thing).

Now, all that happened and then I stopped paying attention for a few years. I worked for a number of years after college and then went off to grad school. That's when this current uke boom just exploded. Now, I'm reconnecting with all my old friends and making lots of new ones.

These days I've found my own voice and a bit of my own style. And I am having a blast finding new (to me) songs and different ways to make music and entertain. I'm playing festivals again and just this June I had the great honor of playing on a national radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. Can't get more fun than that!"


Of the CD, she said this....

I had a wonderful Kickstarter campaign that let lots of people be involved in the project. My friend Steven Strauss played a wonderful upright bass on it, from afar! I got to play some standards, some lost treasures, some parodies that I wrote and even one song written by a dear friend. My little cousin did the artwork for the album (helltobreakfast.net). It's been so much fun putting it all together, all the little details and now sharing it!

For Rachel's take on old standards like I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Sweet Sue, Some of These Days, a bit of doo-wop, and parodies like "Has Anybody Seen My Mom" get a taste of her CD on the link above, or from Amazon, here....

Thanks for dropping in! So much to tell you, and life has been so busy.... but I just had to jump on here and tell you about Rachel's CD... get it! Go on... get it!

Little Boy I'm So Blue (Little Girl I'm so Blue Without You) - Rachel E Manke ukulele

I've seen Rachel E Manke's videos before. She is very, VERY good... a lovely uke player and obviously a natural performer, (I'm green with envy) and she likes the songs I like... so it was a no-brainer that one of her videos would end up on here at some point.

This song was recorded by the Rice Brothers Gang in the 1930's. A new name to you? A new name to me, certainly. Read all about them here.... There's some interesting information about that uke club standard "You Are My Sunshine".. and why it's now on the Creative Commons list. A very human story. I won't re-invent the wheel - check out the link.

I love Rachel's version of the song. Such joy and energy! Played on an Ohana Sopranino, the chords are on the key of C shapes if your uke is tuned in C, but the sopranino is tuned higher than that - so you can't play along, as I discovered!

Look at those chords up the neck... I've recently learned that progression up the neck in my uke lessons - (more about them coming up!) If I'm not much mistaken, it's the so-called "rhythm changes".

Rachel tells me that she has a CD coming out in the spring. One to watch out for - watch this space!

One more thing - that ease, that speed of chord changes up the neck, those easy slides up and down the fingerboard... that's how I want to play. I'm aiming for that. Thanks Rachel!

And thanks, dear readers, for dropping in - I really appreciate it! Don't go too far away, now!