My Mele has "Moe Jo!"

deschutestrout

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So, had a gig last night with a friend (Kelly Bosworth ... best vocalist I've ever played with!) at a pub in The Dalles, Oregon (45 miles from me). Before the gig a couple guys walk in, and she shrieks and gives them hugs and introduces me. First guy reaches out his hand and says "Moe Dixon". I'm thinking "Moe Dixon ... that's a name I've seen and heard". The other guy's name is Kit and he was introduced by Moe as a "monster of a guitar player". We chat a bit and Moe makes a casual mention of my uke (the Mele). I don't think much of it, just "cool, this guy appreciates uke!"

So, Kelly was playing a few songs solo (we were trading back and forth, and playing a bunch together) and she calls me over "you mind if Kit plays your guitar for a song?" Go for it! The guy was unreal.

She then calls Moe up and he grabs my uke. They start in on an easy to follow Knockin' on Heaven's Door ... I can't resist and jump up to grab my harmonica. So... now we're a four piece. The leads Moe did on the uke were nothing short of "Holy $HIT! this guy is amazing!"

We sit down and let Kelly finish her set, and Moe asks me more about the Mele, where I got it and said it was a sweet uke. I told him a bit about my uke "collecting" and he asks "Have you heard of Mya Moe?" "Of course!" I say. He responds "I'm the Moe". Yes, my jaw dropped. How cool is that!

Google the guy. He's a heavy hitter and quite famous. Now my Mele has "Moe Jo" for sure! (google Kelly Bosworth too ... if you like incredible songs written and sung by an INCREDIBLE voice, get her CD ... PM me if you want one of mine ... there are a couple uke tunes on it) :)

Thought some of you would appreciate this story. I was pretty cool.
 
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Spectacular experience! Moe Dixon is one of a select few performers responsible for a lot of my uke playing motivation. If I ever purchase a resonator uke, it will be becuase of Moe Dixon.
 
Moe Dixon is an amazing guitar and ukulele player with a great voice. I love to hear him perform. Lucky you to have them jump in with you.
 
Agreed, very cool. And good karma for you and your uke!
 
How bout that! ya just never know who might show up when you play music!
 
I became familiar with Moe Dixon's music when i ordered a Mya-Moe ukulele. Gordon and Char love telling the story of how he inspired them to start building ukuleles - if I remember correctly, Moe asked Gordon to build him an ukulele at a time when Gordon had started building guitars. It must have been amazing to see Moe play live!

I'm glad to hear that Moe loved your Mele. I visited Mele in 2012 when I was on Maui. At the time I was looking for an 8-string baritone ukulele. They had just sold the one they had, but they showed me a baritone scale 8-string tenor that was beautiful, and they agreed to restring it as a baritone before I had even committed to buying it. It has a great sound and lots of sentimental value as well. I'm glad to hear that Moe liked yours. Congratulations on the "Moe-Jo!"

As an aside, I visited Mele again a few weeks ago when i was on Maui, and this time they showed me a tenor guitar that they had built for someone who ended up not being able to buy it. A wonderful instrument, but I already have two custom tenor guitars and couldn't justify buying it. If anyone's looking for a really nice and reasonably priced tenor guitar head on over to Mele's shop in the Wailea Shopping Center on Maui.
 
Very, very cool. I wasn't familiar with Moe Dixon or the connection to Mya-Moe. To help complete your story, you might add this to your post which I pulled from their site:

Where did the name "Mya-Moe" come from?


Moe Dixon (professional touring musician) owns one of Gordon's early guitars. In January 2008, Moe asked Gordon to build him a ukulele. Early on, Moe played every ukulele that Gordon & Char made.

When we decided to give the ukuleles their own name (to differentiate them from the guitars), we wanted something that sounded vaguely Hawaiian, and we wanted to pay homage to the inspiration and help that Moe had provided. So, we thought of combining our names in some way. Let's see... ...Gordon-Moe, no... ...Mayer-Dixon, not really... ...but maybe some play on Mayer-Moe...

So we rearranged the first 3 letters in "Mayer", came up with Mya-Moe, and changed the pronunciation of Moe to "Mo-a (long a-sound)". Originally we put an accent over the "e" in Moe, but quickly realized that it was very hard to do an internet search on that, so we dropped the accent but still pronounce it the same way.
 
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