Odd ukulele tunings

wfl

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I just got my first uke yesterday (Republic reso-uke, concert scale). Been playing it quite a bit, but I'm messing with tunings.

Re-entrant is nice, but doesn't really fit what I want to do. I've been messing with slack tuning because I'm predominantly a slide blues player on guitar, but I doubt I'll be playing much slide.

Honestly, I know this is a bit weird, but even slack tuning is a bit to chord-rich for what I do. My guitar is tuned to open G; I do a lot of single notes, finger style, octave shapes, and triads on it, mostly involving the lowest 4 strings (D G D G), and use the upper strings for lead work.

When I first got my uke, I decided to try an odd tuning. e A E A; my goal with the uke is to play more hill country style blues and folk, for the most part. This tuning allows me to do my regular guitar tunes on uke (I do a version of St. James Infirmary/Gambler's Blues that sounds great in this tuning, which you can see me play on guitar here: http://www.youtube.com/user/classicwfl#p/a/u/2/Ky-VdhnjUck )

Are tunings like that viable? Anything I should know about it? I'm pretty comfortable picking up just about any stringed instrument and playing it at a basic level. Standard uke tuning is usable, but not really what I need. I'm open to suggestions, since I'm not really up on the technical issues of the ukulele and how it handles alternate tunings.
 
I guess I'll throw in some reasons why I went with the concert scale, as I know more tunings are available on larger ukes.

I busk a lot during the warmer seasons, normally with my full steel body resonator. It's so damned heavy, though, that sometimes I don't feel like dragging it out. I wanted something really light that I could pack with me everywhere, and the concert scale fits that bill. I also like the tone of Republic's reso ukes, which was another deciding factor. Plus, it's just cool to basically have a mini-Providence (Providence is my guitar, also known as my Texan mail order bride :)).
 
When I first got my uke, I decided to try an odd tuning. e A E A; my goal with the uke is to play more hill country style blues and folk,

I know two fiddle players who use that modal tuning for tunes like "Black Mountain Rag". Are you tuning the 3rd string down to A, and the 4th string down to e, or are you tuning the 4th string up an octave above the 2nd string A ?

Bill
 
I can't remember now; I believe I had the 2 e's on the same note, and then had the first A tuned an octave higher (fifth chord with octave, essentially).

Switched back to a slack tuning (standard with the A tuned to G) and am enjoying some of the stuff I'm coming up with for jazzier tunes (going to do "I'm a Bear in a Lady's Boudoir" on my new album as a bonus track), but I'm still open minded about the tuning situation.
 
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