I never consider myself “a ukulele player” rather a musician who plays ukuleles along side many other instruments. Here are some of the ones I love and have or will use in recordings and live work. Please excuse the chat at the begining of the mandolin track, this was one of our “sketch ideas” where what you hear is the first time the others in the ensemble had heard this idea and it shows how quickly these guys can pick up a musical thread and run with it which is why they are so great to play with!
As much as I love ukuleles, I’m not a ukulele evangelist and have a great love of all instruments that help produce really sonically great music. Bill Collings, Stefan Sobell are great makers and Gibson despite its recent history has had some periods where they made really excellent instruments.
Each instrument inspires a different way of playing and I’m a great believer that learning and playing a wide range of instruments only makes for becoming a more skilled artist. These days I’m mostly looking for how things sound regardless of whether I have immediately play what is in front of me, I’ll figure that out later.
After signing off on the second Small Change Diaries album due for release in November (digital world wide release in Oct) I have started working on some solo material with the addition of some new musicians as well as old colleagues. The first track is now fully mastered and sounds great. It also doesn’t have me playing any instruments, I leave that up to my colleagues who supply piano, double bass and violin. This is a different direction to The Small Change Diaries and the solo material is planned for release in 2018.
I have always had a great love of music and am fortunate to know some really talented musicians who have helped shape my own ideas on musical direction. Those who know me also appreciate that I have a love for original music and tend to speak my mind while also appreciating that others may have different views. As a collector of instruments I have over 25 ukuleles, a great electric and acoustic guitar collection and one off instruments that include a Sobell mandola, Gibson mandolin featured here, National dobro previously owned by Martin Simpson, walking bass dulcimer from Austin Texas and other items.