Singin' Ukers

I've been lookin' thru the posts to see what you're singin', and I haven't seen much about Country/Western or Folk Music. Is it all Rock and Pop?I think there's a lot of pickin' too. Am I correct, or did I miss a lot? Most of the comments seem to be about the Ukes and not the music--UAS? I'm just tryin' to learn what's goin' on.

Everything I play on the guitar or uke turns into Country or Folk due to lack of drums, bass or horns.
Is that what you are talking about?
?

I'm a big fan of of C&W and to a smaller degree, folk music. (I guess it depends on how you define folk music, I could be totally on board or quickly give it a pass.) Looking through the book I've put together of favorites I like to play I have Bob Dylan, The Derailers, John Prine, Gram Parsons, Don Gibson, Kris Kristofferson, George Jones, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Charlie Walker, Del Reeves, Buck Owens, Dave Dudley, Ray Price, Jimmie Rodgers, Jim Reeves, Red Foley and Ernest Tubb. I love country music and it's a lot of fun to sing and play.

My strum and sing group just started to do "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash, and we do "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and "Achy Breaky Heart" regularly. Although I'm not a C&W listener, there are plenty of crossover songs I like. I've played "I'm So Lonesome I Could cry" by Hank Williams on harmonica and want to learn it on uke.

Folk music is what I grew up with (and all the 60s rock), and while jamming on my uke with a friend who's just learning harmonica, I stumbled on the first two chords of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice" and we worked it up as a harmonica/ukulele duet. I love those moments.

Check out the groups at Island Bazaar in Huntington Beach. I went on a Sat and they sang several c&w.

In the last 18 months or so, I've recorded the following country/folk/bluegrass tunes:

Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, Sloop John B, Dear Abby, Illegal Smile, Men Behind the Guns, What'll We Do With The Baby-o, Lemon Chimes, I love (little baby ducks), Country Roads, She Sang Hymns Out of Tune, There is a Time, Dooly, Poor Ellen Smith, Gloomy Sunday, Banks of the Ohio, Hushabye Mountain, and Shadygrove.

That's just under half of what I've bothered to record. The rest is comedy and soft rock. They're all available on my Youtube page. I don't post all my videos here because some of them are works in progress and I throw them up on Youtube for easy reference. That way I don't have them wasting space my hard drive. Poor Ellen Smith, for instance, was something I recorded over a year ago. Now I play it with a much livelier composition, but I've been lazy and haven't bothered to record the new version.

Down Up Dick said:

I've been lookin' thru the posts to see what you're singin', and I haven't seen much about Country/Western or Folk Music. Is it all Rock and Pop?I think there's a lot of pickin' too.

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I personally play/sing tunes by Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Fred Neil, Leonard Cohen, Chad Mitchell Trio, Kingston Trio, Donovan, Dave Van Ronk... lots of old folkie stuff in my repertoire. But then I grew up listening to them when they were new. I play a lot of tunes that were staples in the folk circuit back in the 60s.

I also play Beatles, Byrds, Rolling Stones, and other classic rock. Tunes I played in bands and jams in the 60s and 70s.

I play old R&B and MoTown tunes (not the modern pablum mis-represented as R&B today: I mean Aretha, Otis, Wilson and the greats).

A bit of cowboy music (the old stuff, mostly pre-1950; the kind Ian Tyson often plays - not the new country which is so formulaic it gives me hives).

Blues: I don't play as much blues on the acoustic uke as I played on the electric guitar, but still play some.

Plus I play a lot of songs from the 20s and 30s; tunes my own parents would have known. Love that stuff. Great music that is sadly often forgotten today. And a few of the standards from the 40s and 50s are in that list, too.

New pop? Almost none. There's some good music out there, and good musicians, but there's a lot of derivative pap, too. Way too much.

For me, pop music reached its apogee in 1970 (call me an old fart if you must, but I still hear the old Beatles' and Rolling Stones' tunes on the radio, 40 to 50 years later). I play mostly what I grew up with.

Finger pick: yes: folkie style, my techniques on the uke developed from almost 50 years on the guitar, mostly acoustic.

Depends on the song, but my own technique is a combination strum/pick. Use all of my fingers and hand.

Some songs I simply strum. Depends on the song. Depends whether I'm singing, how well I know it and if I feel it needs some fiddly finger bits.

I've recorded everything from Hank Williams to CCR to Irish-American folk ballads to 50's rock...well...you get the idea. Probably the only genres I haven't played are hip-hop and current pop.

If it can be played, it can be played on a ukulele.

Now, if you play with a club or group you'll find that they often gravitate to styles of music that fit the demographics of the group. Lots of twenty-somethings you're going to get a lot of current pop. Middle-aged crowd you're more likely to see country, early rock, folk, and "traditional ukulele" songs.

How about new folk/rock? I do a lot of stuff by the Decemberists which I find translates well to the uke. I also like doing "City of New Orleans" and "Drill Ye Tarriers, Drill" when I'm in the mood for some good old train songs (not the band Train, I mean songs about trains ).

All the above and Woody Guthrie

Most of the music I play is folk, folk-rock, or roots rock. I perform as a folk duo with my wife and I also do children's concerts of mainly folk-type music. With my wife we do lots of Dylan, Woody & Arlo Guthrie, Donovan, but also some female artists such as Buffy Sainte Marie and Emmylou Harris. For children's music Pete Seeger's hard to beat, but Woody, Arlo, and Donovan have some good stuff to offer there, too. I also play a lot of my own stuff and stuff by lesser known artists, but all pretty folky.

Michael Hurley, Hoyt Axton, John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III, Tim Hardin, Roger Miller, John Denver, Lovin Spoonful, Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel and the list goes on.

Go to my You Tube channel (link in sig file) you will find a lot of traditional folk songs as well as contemporary folk such as mentioned above. You'll also find RnR & pop as I participate in UU Seasons of the ukulele. As Eugene Uke says above, the ukulele is a flexible instrument and capable of being used for any genre of music.

Down Up Dick said:

I've been lookin' thru the posts to see what you're singin', and I haven't seen much about Country/Western or Folk Music. Is it all Rock and Pop?I think there's a lot of pickin' too. Am I correct, or did I miss a lot? Most of the comments seem to be about the Ukes and not the music--UAS? I'm just tryin' to learn what's goin' on.

Click to expand...

There are, in fact two permanent, continuously ongoing message threads created specifically for this purpose (Country/Western & Folk Music), which were created back in mid-Feb 2014.

You may not have yet found the section of the forum under CONTESTS, and at the top of that section there is a dedicated sub-section called SEASONS OF THE UKULELE.

The Seasons are a themed-weekly 'contest' that runs for one week. UU members make videos, which are judged by the host for that week, and while there are prizes, it is not a cut-throat scenario at all, but more like a super-friendly internet-based open-mic video performance with a theme that pushes you to learn new songs every week, and learn them good enough to make a video you want other folks to see. There is lots of encouragement and support, as well as learning from others, and as a group, we are all getting better as time moves on.

You can see the regular weekly SEASONS which are now up to week 113: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/forumdisplay.php?47-Seasons-of-the-Ukulele

There is lots of camaraderie amongst fellow Seasonistas and all of the subsections below were created as a result from group discussions for overflow content that might not fit a current week's theme, or for those that could not make it on time before the week was over.

There is one for FOLK: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?93180-Folk-Music-by-Seasonistas

and one for COUNTRY & WESTERN: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...H-kinds-of-music!)&highlight=seasonistas+sing

as well as BLUES: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...tas-Sing-The-Blues&highlight=seasonistas+sing

as well as UU MEMBERS DOING COLLABORATIONS: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?86811-Seasonistas-jamming-with-Seasonistas&highlight=seasonistas+sing

as well as Misfits Island section: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?85238-The-Island-of-Misfit-Seasonistas

and there's even a BLOOPERS section: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...easonistas-Blooper-Reel!-Post-em-here-folks!-)

All of this is NOT on the main front page of the Forum, it is under the CONTESTS area.

Maybe we will have YOU join the Seasons in on of these sections sometime soon?

BY now with around 2 years worth of weekly videos, and some weeks have over 100 video entries, if you wanted to start at the beginning, and watch all the videos up to the latest ones, you can FILL all of your available free time. I am sure you can find either themed songs or the outer season areas that might get your interest.

There are at LEAST 1,000 videos you can watch created by your fellow UU brothers and sisters.

Well, looks like I hit the Mother Lode. Thanks to all for replying.
I like the old C/W stuff--Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Willie Nelson et al. I have Jumpin' Jim's "Ukulele Country", and I like it a lot. I have a book of Cowboy Songs that's not bad too.
But mostly I like folk music. I play lots of Irish music on my flutes and whistles, marches and old dancing tunes on my fifes, and world folk tunes too. I like to listen to Doc Watson, Iris Dement, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and lots of others from the 50s and 60s. Folk music is easy to play and fun to sing. I really enjoy it.