Streets of London - played by Ken Middleton

Lots of Ukafrolics to tell you about - which involves me sitting down and writing some.... so while I get myself organised for that, here's a lovely song from Ken Middleton, Ralph McTell's Streets of London, played by Ken on his Mike Pereira tenor at the Ukulele Festival of Scotland 2016, held in Dumfries back in May. It's rather gorgeous. He writes "I have tried to merge Streets of London with the chord sequence to Pachelbel's Canon...." Mmmmmm - lovely.....

Watch it on Youtube here....

What - Widecombe Fair on Ukulele? Oh YES!

But this is NOT the song that you may have learned all those years ago - oh no!


As a child, one of my prize possessions was "The News Chronicle Songbook" - a book full of all manner of songs, which had belonged to my grandmother.

It was the only sheet music in the house, and I used it to play my recorder. I thought it a treasure trove, and discovered all sorts of songs which I would never have come across otherwise... sea shanties and old folk songs, spirituals, hymns and carols... it's still among my treasures now, and if it seemed battered then now it's even more so.
One of the songs I learned and loved was "Widdicombe Fair".. Widecombe-in-the-Moor is a village in Dartmoor National Park in Devon, and the song tells of Old Uncle Tom Cobley and All.... a tale of woe ... Dartmoor is NOT a place one would wish to get lost. If you don't know the old song, hear it here..

Anyway... as I told you last time, I have been hosting Season of the Ukulele, number 164, on the Ukulele Underground Forum. As my theme, I chose "All the Fun of the Fair"... and one of the "Seasonistas" found..... this video. I think it's a spine-tingling performance of this song by "Phil" of the Yorkshire Dales..... Here's his own page.... PhilzMusic

The song was written by Steve Knightley of the English folk duo Show of Hands, and is a reworking of the title and the theme of the old song. It includes the names of the characters and even Tom Pierce and his grey mare - but you never heard this tale before. I love it.... and had to share.

See Steve Knightley perform his song live with his South American cuatro here

Thanks for dropping in! Coming up - some of the songs from my "All the Fun of the Fair" week. Don't go too far away, now!

Caroline and Ray sing D-Day Dodgers at the GFS Convention, June 2014!

Since I raved about attending my first George Formby Convention in Blackpool in June 2012, it has become a four times a year pilgrimage, not to be missed if I can help it! Last weekend was one such trip, and what a weekend we had of solid music, companionship and fun! I love to take part, the demon just gets hold of me - and I had sensibly decided that this time I would not venture on stage as I hadn't anything properly prepared - the golden rule is, know it - words and music - so that you can't forget it! Well, I do know the chords to Lili Marlene really well, they are easy... so when, at short notice my very good friends Caroline and her husband Ray asked me to accompany them in a rendition of D-Day Dodgers, I was only too pleased for an excuse to get up on that stage! So here we are. Ray's very first time on stage... and Caroline's lovely voice... I first heard this song in the folk club I habitually frequented in the late 1960's, The Jug O'Punch, run by Ian Campbell in Birmingham. A fitting tribute for the D-Day commemorations. Lovely to be on stage with my friends, and not worrying about my voice!

Caroline explains the background to the song....



I should explain that the two day convention is pretty well exclusively devoted to George Formby songs on the Saturday, but Sunday has a lot of other banjo-uke and ukulele music - and the Sunday evening, when the regular band have gone home is quite informal. And that's when we did this, on Sunday evening.

A very real ukulele hero - Ex-NY Firefighter sings "The Bravest"

Here is the most moving performance of a song I have seen in years. When you read the context, you'll see why.

For the weekly "Season" contest on the UU Underground, the theme this week is "Back to Work". Kurt Siegel sang and played a song by Tom Paxton called "The Bravest". He has kindly allowed me share it with you, complete with his own introduction.


"This is my last one for this season, and is a bonus, therefore not eligible for judging.

Not my best work, but very, very hard to do. I've referred to it as "a little too close to home", and you'll see why.

As part of this season, Ginny asked that we try to do songs that have to do with our professions. And to explain what we do.

While I currently am employed as a barista, I am a retired Firefighter. In the course of my duties, I was also a member of the Upstate New York Urban/Technical Search and Rescue Team. I even designed the Team Logo!

The folks who trained us were members of the New York City FEMA team - truly the Elite. They worked with us as we learned the tools, the terminology, the basics. We got more proficient as the training went on, and had a response before we were technically ready to go, when a tornado rolled through the area. It was a sobering experience.

At one point during the training, one of the FDNY members made an off-hand remark that we thought was funny. "We'll be here any time you need us," he said. "But we're never going to have to call you guys. Unless, you know, the World Trade Centers collapse."

The Upstate NY team did respond to New York City on September 11, 2011. I was the EMS coordinator for my Fire Department, and was required to remain, making sure that we were covered in the event anything happened. After all, there were a number of High Priority sites right here: General Electric, two Nuclear Power Labs, and the State Capital less than 15 miles away.

My Chief released me on September 13, and I responded with the second group. We still didn't really know what we were walking into by then.

Tom Paxton wrote the song "The Bravest" on September 24, 2001. It had taken that long for many people, not just Tom, to be able to say, sing, or write what was slamming around inside of them. I first heard this song when Garrison Keillor sang it on "A Prairie Home Companion".

I cried.

As you'll see in the video, the song still makes me cry.

I did this as a one-take. I wouldn't be able to get through it again.

At the end of the video are some photographs. The first I got as part of a training class I was in some time after December 2001. The others are photos I took while I was on the site. There is no audio. Please don't watch all the way through if this might disturb you.

The final photo is a t-shirt back, with the names of our UTSAR instructors who we lost that day.

Thanks for putting up with me on this one.

-Kurt"

Manitoba Hal goes Flirting with Mermaids - Review

Knowing that I like folky styles and have a bit of a leaning towards blues, a kind soul pointed me in the direction of Manitoba Hal, Hal Brolund. Boy, am I glad he did!

Of the ukulele, Hal says “People often think of the ukulele as a happy instrument and they're not wrong, but it is also capable of delivering the mojo that makes the blues so interesting”.

I've been listening to Hal's latest album, "Flirting with Mermaids" - and listening to it again - and again. This man, an accomplished guitarist, songwriter and ukulele player, has talent to be reckoned with. The album combines original songs with traditional blues songs and creates a musical journey of unexpected twists and turns of mood and style that just has to be repeated.

Hal says of this album "Imagine the blues meeting the Acadian shore in a seaside carnival of snake oil salesmen, tattooed women and mermaids! Carney's stealing the gate receipts share space with fast food vendors and various hucksters. There are all types here. The bluesmen, the lovers and the hungry.

Before you ask, yes this record was recorded with the ukulele in the main performance roles of every song save two. Every solo that you might think is an electric guitar is a ukulele, most of the organ sounds on this record are a ukulele. Heck even some of the percussion is performed on a ukulele. My goal was to create a record that was fun to listen to, that told a story and didn't require you to be a fan of ukulele to enjoy."

I had never heard Hal's music before, and the first track was a real delight, a whimsical and droll conjuring up of mermaids, with a folky fingerstyle ukulele.

The mood moves to folk-rock, with the ukulele played clawhammer style if I'm not much mistaken, then shifts to a very bluesy number. Another musical shift to cajun-style, and then to real heart-rending blues pleading in "Turn Out the Lights".

The blues standards are not neglected, and are given a first-class treatment - "Baby Please Don't Go" and later on, "16 Tons".

Right through to the end of the album, the dance rhythms of - Louisiana? - I'm guessing - are interspersed with Gospel sounds and then deep, deep blues - to end the album with "The Thrill is Gone", a no-holds-barred blues to wrench the soul and think yes, the thrill of this album is over - better play it again.

If you like folky styles, finger-picking, jumpin' cajun-style music and the bluesiest blues you ever heard - Manitoba Hal's your man.

Go Flirting with Mermaids!


PS 2nd July...

One of my fave ukulele blogs Got A Ukulele has just reviewed Flirting With Mermaids; each song in detail! If you like what you've read so far, read it here!

Celtic Fiddle Tune Medley - Ben Lyman

I'll be posting shortly on a real Ukafrolic of a weekend in Blackpool at the GFS - the George Formby Society. But as I was trying to catch up on posts I've missed on my subscribed threads on the Ukulele Underground Forum, I saw this video posted by Ben Lyman.

I've loved traditional folk music since I was introduced to it in my teens by a boyfriend back in 1967 - giving my age away again here! There is something deep and haunting about these old Celtic fiddle melodies, and Ben performs them beautifully here on his ukulele. I just had to share with you.

The tunes are
1. Banish Misfortune
2. Planxty Irwin
3. After the Battle of Aughrin
4. The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Thank you, Ben, for allowing me to share this on my blog; you play just beautifully - another inspiration for me!

I must practice, practice, practice......

"The Shearin's No' For You" - traditional Scottish folksong, Eugene Ukulele

I have loved traditional Scottish ballads and lullabies ever since my folk club days back in the late 60's. I rarely hear them now, and this one I have never heard before....but every now and then you hear a song that affects you so deeply that it actually catches your breath. This rendition of "The Shearin's No' For You" by "Eugene Ukulele" is so hauntingly beautiful that I watched and listened to it twice straight off, and woke up this morning with it on the brain. Just a gorgeous song - but it's Eugene's singing and playing that makes it so very moving. The baritone ukulele is a perfect choice - and it comes straight from the heart - you can tell.

Wow. Just Wow. This is why he is one of my Ukulele Heroes.......

WORRIED MAN BLUES - Ken Middleton plays Clawhammer Ukulele

Here's one of my Ukulele Heroes, Ken Middleton, with his new video of Worried Man Blues on an Ohana ukulele. He's playing clawhammer style, a percussive way of playing fingerstyle originating from banjo playing in the Appalachians. Back in the 60's, Pete Seeger used it to great effect with the long neck 5 string banjo, which he invented. There are plenty of clawhammer banjo videos on Youtube - but here Ken shows the versatility of the wonderful ukulele once again!

Look here at ezfolk.com for more on clawhammer ukulele, with some tips.

Johnny Foodstamp - A Banjolele Player among the Nashville Guitarists

JOHNNY FOODSTAMP - "I'll Take the Rest" - Douglas Corner - In the Round


Since the late 50's the guitar has reigned supreme..... and I love to hear a guitar, whether it's being played superbly by someone who has mastered their art, or strummed by an amateur for a sing-song. But - many would agree with me that there's something about the sound of a ukulele that touches parts that the guitar cannot reach... and the same can be said of the banjo-uke. In an earlier post I told how I first experienced that all those years ago at the Jug O'Punch.

What that unnamed hero was doing in the late 60's at the Jug, Johnny Foodstamp is doing now at Douglas Corner, a premier Nashville folk club - showcasing the banjo-ukulele George Formby-style to a folk audience - and wowing them. Here Johnny is singing a song he wrote himself, just the day before. The guitarists sitting either side of him on-stage look a little skeptical at the beginning - but end up rather impressed!

A Banjo-Ukulele Hero who will Have to Remain Nameless

Alas, he will have to remain nameless because I can't remember his name; let's face it, dear reader, it was a long time ago...

Picture, if you can, the Birmingham city centre of the late 60's... the icons we associate with the the 60's were all to the fore at that time - mini-skirts, mod hair-styles, dark eye-make-up, spiky eyelashes, very pale lipstick, Twiggy, the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Small Faces; I embraced them all - and something else, which was also in full swing; the folk revival.

In Birmingham, the hub of the folk revival was the folk club called the Jug O'Punch, in Digbeth, run by Ian Campbell of the Ian Campbell Folk Group. Every week, for many, many months I was there, about fourth row back, soaking up the best folk music in the biggest, most atmospheric folk club around.... and saw, live, as well as my favourite Ian Campbell group, guest artists like Jean Ritchie from the Appalachians, who autographed for me the album of hers that I won in the raffle, (still got it!) Ralph McTell, who was tasting success with his song, "Streets of London," the Dubliners, the Chieftains, the Spinners, Joni Mitchell.... and a little local middle-aged chap in a waistcoat who would come out from time to time and sock it us with his banjo-ukulele, Formby-style. The song that always comes to mind, because we all joined in the chorus, was "Auntie Maggie's Homemade Remedy." It always brought the house down. The banjo-uke was totally uncool, even then, but he was welcomed onto the floor, and the audience loved him. He sang other numbers, I'm sure, but "Auntie Maggie's Remedy" is the one that sticks in the memory. And since then I've always had a sneaking regard for the utter skill and virtuosity of good Formby-style banjolele players.

I hope he sometimes takes centre stage in whichever celestial halls he now frequents - and I wish I could remember his name. I hold up my half pint of ale in salute.