Season 265 "Golden Age of Ukulele"

3rd Entry. I'll be on the road this week (shocker, there) and have to get my entries in early. Vocally challenging but it seems to fit the spirit of the Season.
 
Hi, Tommy ... yes, indeed, thanks for hosting this week! My first offering is from the "Gilded Age". Strangely drawn though I was initially, to the fetchingly entitled "Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead", I decided that it wasn't really very "gilded". I believe that the song I have chosen, "After the Ball is Over", was a very popular song of the 1890s, although it, too, is a very SAD song ... I had only ever heard the chorus before!
 
For Season 265 of the Ukulele, we're playing music written during the Golden Age of the Ukulele, defined by our host as between 1870-1937. Here’s “You Do Something To Me” (Cole Porter, 1929), played on concert ukulele with singing and whistling, and an overdub of Ubass.

 
Good morning Seasonistas!

I do not know how many of you are history buffs like Iam. I like to post about historical events in song. Tommorrow March 14th is Casey Jones' Birthday. "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) from Jackson, Tennessee, was an American railroader who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. He was killed on April 30, 1900 when his train collided with a stalled freight train near Vaughan, Mississippi. His dramatic death while trying to stop his train and save the lives of his passengers made him a hero; he was immortalized in a popular ballad "The Ballad of Casey Jones", 1900, sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African-American engine wiper for the IC. The song tells the story better than I can. There is Truth in Folksong!
 
Good morning Seasonistas!

I do not know how many of you are history buffs like Iam. I like to post about historical events in song. Tommorrow March 14th is Casey Jones' Birthday. "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) from Jackson, Tennessee, was an American railroader who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. He was killed on April 30, 1900 when his train collided with a stalled freight train near Vaughan, Mississippi. His dramatic death while trying to stop his train and save the lives of his passengers made him a hero; he was immortalized in a popular ballad "The Ballad of Casey Jones", 1900, sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African-American engine wiper for the IC. The song tells the story better than I can. There is Truth in Folksong!

And he became a TV series .. I hadn't realised the history behind it. (And, no, I don't remember it the first time around!) Great song, and what on earth is an "engine wiper"?
 
And he became a TV series .. I hadn't realised the history behind it. (And, no, I don't remember it the first time around!) Great song, and what on earth is an "engine wiper"?

Historically an Engineer is a steam engine operator. A "Wiper" is the the low man on the totem pole in an engine "room". A Wiper cleans the engine spaces and machinery, and assists the Engineer as directed. In England where railroading had its start; a Wiper is called a "Cleaner". It is an apprenticeship role to the "Oiler",

The "Oiler" is responsible for lubricating an engine or other piece of operating equipment. In 1872, Elijah McCoy patented an oil-drip cup lubrication system. It was so effective that railroad engine maintenance costs were reduced by about 25% In fact the system was so good that railroad engineers would request it by name, "the Real McCoy" system. Sadly for the workers this made the "Oiler" a redundant occupation, (except in "sailing ships"). Nowadays the Operating Engineer sees to the lubrication of his own Equipment. A D5 bulldozer requires lubrication at 16 points before starting up the engine each time, if memory serves.
 
Season 265. Submission 1. "Georgia On My Mind" (Words by Stuart Morrell and music by Hoagy Carmichael (1930) )


 
Here's an oldie but a goodie. Our uke group throws this one in every once in a while. Freight Train by Elizabeth Cotton, played here with a finger style backing on my Moore Bettah tenor.
 
Greetings Tommy and All,

I went back to 1898 with this Italian classic written by Giovanni Capurro, "O Sole Mio". I took all the photo's in Italy 3 years ago on a cross country drive. Here are some of the best, including playing the baby uke on the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Well, I am not Caruso..but I did my best. I kept it simple.

Ciao

 
Historically an Engineer is a steam engine operator. A "Wiper" is the the low man on the totem pole in an engine "room". A Wiper cleans the engine spaces and machinery, and assists the Engineer as directed. In England where railroading had its start; a Wiper is called a "Cleaner". It is an apprenticeship role to the "Oiler",

The "Oiler" is responsible for lubricating an engine or other piece of operating equipment. In 1872, Elijah McCoy patented an oil-drip cup lubrication system. It was so effective that railroad engine maintenance costs were reduced by about 25% In fact the system was so good that railroad engineers would request it by name, "the Real McCoy" system. Sadly for the workers this made the "Oiler" a redundant occupation, (except in "sailing ships"). Nowadays the Operating Engineer sees to the lubrication of his own Equipment. A D5 bulldozer requires lubrication at 16 points before starting up the engine each time, if memory serves.

Well, whaddaya know :)
 
"Play a Simple Melody" is a song from the 1914 musical, Watch Your Step, words and music by Irving Berlin.

 
This song was written for the show, “George White’s Scandals of 1934" and recorded by Elsie Carlisle and Sam Browne. It was soon covered by the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra and Cliff Edwards, who went by the stage name Tuba Tom or some such thing.

 
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