39th season of the ukulele......"the ukesterbrown challenege"

So,…the 39th season…this week will harken back to some great ukulele music..
And, specifically, to one of my favorite Uke players and teachers....Mr. (Dave) UkesterBrown!

UkesterBrown was very adamant about making sure that this was my idea… and it was! not just a sneaky way to get people to look at his uke site! I just really like his song choices, and his songsheets have helped me become a sillier dave!

PARAMETERS:
* your song must be from Ukesterbrown’s songsheet
* ukulele front and center, no overdubs...
* state in your clip that the recording is for the "39th season of the ukulele"
* multiple versions of the same song are OK, and encouraged! And inevitable! first post will count as entry unless otherwise stated, the more bonuses the better!
* one take, no overdubs
*For every bonus song, you name goes into the hat for the BONUS prize! A new puppy! ..no, just kidding! A Sparky’s Roadhouse Café T-Shirt!

JUDGING CRITERIA:
points awarded in the following criteria:
* Playing
* Singing
* Overall performance: (camera presence; personality; creative flair; x-factor etc...)

JUDGES: thesillydave, ruth (thesillydave’s wife) and…..Mr. Ukester brown! Yes! The real Ukester!
DEADLINE: 11:59 PM HAWAII TIME, SUNDAY Nov.18TH.

PRIZES:
1ST PLACE: 25.00 gift certificate from UU mechandise!
2ND PLACE: 20.00 Amazon gift card from Mr. UkesterBrown!
3RD PLACE: Snarktuner! And the bonus prize….a collectable, wearable, share-able Tshirt from my silly café!
The song sheets:
http://www.ukesterbrown.com/song-sheets.html
All of his songs have a video of him playing the song if you need to get an idea of how the song “could” be played… BUT…that’s not the point…to play it like he does…play it your way…any which way!
Have fun! Cheers!
Thesillydave!

the playlist!:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMlz-8TEVI4by8ZkppgWrEGO9G7CERCnh

Great challenge, Dave. Super cool to give UkesterBrown some well-deserved props!

wow! i just got real wordy!
i had to have my wife proof this for me!
hope everyone can understand this..
any questions, = deduction of bonus points!
ha!
have fun playing some really fun ukulele music!
and...be silly! that's the point!
have a great uke week!

a long week

Man this is going to be a looooong and cooool week.
Those are all great standarts.
Thank you for advertising this site, wich is very fine.

Let's go to work!

nice one Dave. Not sure I have time to record anything this week, but I think I have recorded many of these songs before, so I will throw up a few 'bonuses' maybe. have an awesome week everyone! Ukesterbrown is a fine, fine player and crooner and it's a wonderful website he has up and going for sure.

Great competition Dave thanks for hosting and some absolutely fabulous songs, i to use and love uksterbrowns site i love these old songs looking forward to this weeks challenge, many thanks

here's one off the bat. Nina Simone's signature tune

I decided to do "if the devil danced in empty pockets" I don't know the melody for it
so I just sang what I felt went along with the chords... in some places it sounded like
"Bad Leroy brown" I suspect the tempo and the melody is out of whack... but that is what I do.

Sing the melody correctly and you have a cover, sing the melody all wrong and you have an interpretation.ld:

wee_ginga_yin said:

I decided to do "if the devil danced in empty pockets" I don't know the melody for it
so I just sang what I felt went along with the chords... in some places it sounded like
"Bad Leroy brown" I suspect the tempo and the melody is out of whack... but that is what I do.

Sing the melody correctly and you have a cover, sing the melody all wrong and you have an interpretation.ld:

Click to expand...

I too have never herd this song. I really like your interpretation of it. No funny ending though? Shame

eugene ukulele said:

here's one off the bat. Nina Simone's signature tune

Click to expand...

Great video. Brilliant playing and singing as ever. I like the flat cap. Suits you

Nice theme! Saddle up Dave's...LET'S RIDE.
Be back in a little bit with a tune
Suppose I should ask now for clarity- Many of the tunes here were performed by LOTS of artists, and Ukester is a stickler for the original verse, do we need to do the same?
Wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket with a Bob Wills rendition only to find it ain't what your after-
Thanks for what is gonna be a great week Dave

As it was the only one I could play without to much practice ;-). I'm thinking we are going to see a lot of this song this season.
Summertime:

TCK said:

Nice theme! Saddle up Dave's...LET'S RIDE.
Be back in a little bit with a tune
Suppose I should ask now for clarity- Many of the tunes here were performed by LOTS of artists, and Ukester is a stickler for the original verse, do we need to do the same?
Wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket with a Bob Wills rendition only to find it ain't what your after-
Thanks for what is gonna be a great week Dave

Click to expand...

The main parameter is playing a song from that song sheet page, ...how you want to play it is your call!
i've covered many of these, some are close to Ukester's, some are not! think of them as a starting point!
have fun with these songs...play them straight up or make them your own!
ie., check out wee_ginga's great interpretation "If the Devil Danced In Empty Pockets"
cheers!

Brilliant idea for the contest, Dave!
We play a lot of the songs from Ukester Brown's website, so it is quite hard to decide which one should be our official entry. I guess this week we can hear a lot of different versions of the same song, really looking forward to this! For today we decided to post "Sunny" because we play this song almost the way Ukester Brown wrote it in his sheet. So if a beginner on the UU wants to learn it he can use our vid as a playalong.

eugene ukulele said:

here's one off the bat. Nina Simone's signature tune

Click to expand...

Great rendition, Jon! This reminds me of one brilliant thing about Ukester's sheets: He often is the only one who knows and writes down the introducing lines to a song!

Double the Dave, double the fun! I love Ukesterbrown's arrangements so now the difficult part is going to be choosing which one to record.

Already there are great entries! It's already shaping up to be an amazing week.

This week is going to get very busy! I first met "Ukesterbrown" at the Windy City Ukefest. I commented on his Kepasa soprano and he handed it to me to let me try it. He had just gotten it. Some time later I recognized the Kepasa in one of his videos and commented that I met a guy in Chicago and what do you know it was him. We have since had a continued musical friendship via the interwebs. I play quite a few of the songs from David's site, some because of his site and some because I have similar taste in music. My friend Stacey frequently asks me to play Sunny until she asked me to post a video so she could listen whenever she wanted to. This one is because of Ukesterbrown's site. Thanks David, keep them coming. I may have to redo it and make it my official entry. For now, it's bonus material.

I personally like this type of challenge where the songs are limited and it's based on our interpretation. I think I'm going to do the first song, "Chord Chart C" HAHA

Great contest Dave!

EDIT: I just saw my first ukesterbrown video and the first thought I had is, Wow, he sounds just like Jon!! This is right up his alley!

Here's our first bonus. We changed the songsheet dramatically