I was wandering around the Ala Moana shopping centre in Honolulu, coming to the end of my month in the USA for the In Search of Elvis book. I found myself outside a shop called the Ukulele House. Elvis of course brandished a ukulele in Blue Hawaii and, with little better to do, I wandered in. Twenty minutes later I wandered out again with a KoAloha soprano ukulele under my arm, and my musical world has not been the same since.
After years of thrashing away on guitars, mandolins, bouzoukis, banjos and even an oud, not to mention sawing on a fiddle and blowing into Irish whistles and even a Cherokee flute, the scales had finally fallen from my eyes and I'd found the instrument for me. Not only that, I'd opened up a whole new musical and cultural vista for myself. I had entered Ukeworld.
Believe it or not, the ukulele is, at long last, cool. Not only are the likes of Pearl Jam and the Black-Eyed Peas extolling its virtues, but in even in Britain it's taking over from the recorder as the nation's schools' most popular instrument. The UK now boasts the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and last year the country's first dedicated ukulele shop, Duke of Uke, opened in London. Joe Strummer's musical career began with him busking on the ukulele outside Green Park tube. There's even a strong, credible rumour that the Queen once expressed a desire to learn the ukulele.
The uke has usually had a bad press in Britain, the blame for which arguably can be laid squarely at the toothsome door of George Formby. As a result of his films and songs, the ukulele tends to be seen as a bit of a joke, something to laugh at, down there with the morris dancers in the murky depths of musical credibility.
Yet outside these shores the ukulele has a credible, proud, rich and frequently quirky history. They say the real test of a good tune is if it works on the ukulele, Paul McCartney said that "if I meet a grown-up who plays the ukulele, I love them", while no less a figure than Krusty the Clown called it "the thinking man's violin". Cybill Shepherd, in her early days as a Memphis beauty queen, was famous for her renditions of Bob Dylan songs on the ukulele, while Marilyn Monroe played one in Some Like It Hot. Elvis did likewise in Blue Hawaii. Peter Sellers played the ukulele on the Parkinson show in 1974. When Neil Armstrong went into three-week quarantine after the first moon landing, he took a ukulele in with him. The little instrument is far from the kids' toy of many British people's perception. That perception is changing however.
The instrument even has its very own rock'n'roll casualty in Cliff Edwards, otherwise known as Ukulele Ike. Edwards started out on the vaudeville circuit, teaching himself the uke because it was a good accompaniment to his voice and easy to carry around, but soon became the leading light of the ukulele boom. MGM put him in several films - it's his voice singing When You Wish Upon A Star in Pinocchio - and he had a national radio show. However, a drink problem and recklessness with his fortune meant that the first ukulele superstar died alone, broke and friendless in a Hollywood convalescent home in 1971 at the age of 75. In fact, no-one claimed his body for days, and he was about to be donated to medical science when word reached the Disney organisation who rallied round to give him a decent send off.
The ukulele story began in Hawaii when a ship called the Ravenscrag docked in Honolulu with a boatload of immigrants from Portugal on August 23rd 1879. The story goes that one of the Portuguese, Joao Fernandes, was so excited to have arrived after his 15,000 mile, four month voyage, he pulled out his braguinha, similar to the modern ukulele, and played joyful tunes on the quayside. The watching Hawaiians thought that his nimble fingers looked a little like a jumping flea, which in Hawaiian sounds a little like ukulele. Hence the name, so they say.
Fernandes and a couple of other men from the boat began to make ukuleles and the instrument soon became hugely popular on the islands, with even the royal family learning to play. In 1915, the ukulele travelled to mainland USA for an Expo, and the place went nuts. The whole country went ukulele bonkers, so much so that within a year the Victor Recording Company had no less that 146 Hawaiian songs on its publishing roster. Two years later Paradise In The Pacific magazine said "the ukulele signifies innocent merriment - we should take off our hats to the little Hawaiian ukulele". In the 1950s the Arthur Godfrey show on national television brought the uke to the masses - a plastic model designed for people to play along to the show sold millions.
Popularity tailed off in the ensuing years, but these days the ukulele is back. There are festivals, clubs and bands all over Britain and the world, and MySpace is awash with ukesters. It's portable and easy to learn. It lends itself to a variety of musical styles. And I think it's brilliant.
There are some tremendous ukulele resources on the net. This clip of Jake Shimabakuro playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps should give you an idea of how far the uke has come since George Formby, for example. Ukelelia is a great resource that's updated practically daily, while Flea Market Music is a spiffing site for all sorts of uke-related stuff. Uketalk, Ukulele Universe, the Ukulele Man and the UK-based forum Ukulele Cosmos.
The ukulele. It's small. It's versatile. It's fun. Play one. Go on, you know you want to. No, don't look at me askance like that, you really do.