Happy birthday, again!

happy birthday dear courtney love on the 9th, happy birthday to yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou

Sow good seeds - Mavis Staples 10th July

thank you for this week Dave.
an original song for the season.

Hello, Dave! Shane Filan, of Irish boyband "Westlife" celebrated his 41st Birthday on 5th July. I really don't like boybands, but "Westlife" seem to have done an awful lot of covers, of which this is one ...

aspieman456 said:

What video program did you use when you played the harmonica?

Click to expand...

I edit all my videos using Open Shot. The audio and video are recorded separately but simultaneously then combined in the video editor.

July the 9th would have been the 74th birthday of the late, great Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott who sadly left us in 1980 at the age of 33.
Here's my take on the opening track from AC/DC'S High Voltage album which features arguably the greatest use of bagpipes in the history of rock 'n' roll. I've tried to pay tribute to this with some of the shoddiest melodica playing you're ever likely to hear...
Also, I couldn't resist the temptation to change the lyrics to my daughter's preferred version at the very end...

Happy birthday, Bon...

One thing that I've noticed about these Wiki lists, and now that I have noticed it, it's really starting to bug me: apart from Peter Murphy, there's no British artists listed.

The nationalities of artists of American, Canadian, Swedish, Danish, Irish, Taiwanese, Japanese Bermudian etc, origin are all given due credit; but for musicians holding UK passports it's (almost) always "Brit drummer", "Brit singer" "Brit pianist" "Brit guitarist", & I don't know why. If I click through to "Brit synthpop singer" Marc Almond's page, the only 'Brit' that's mentioned is his 'Brit Award'. In terms of markup though, I can't find anything on his page that looks any different to that of Mr M's.

In the great scheme of things... I know. But it is bizarre.

I wanna be your man

..anyway



On Ringo's (and my little brother's) birthday, a Lennon/McCartney number penned for Ringo, and sung by him on their 2nd album 'With The Beatles'.
Made famous of course by the Rolling Stones, for whom it was their first UK #1.

Back in 1963, although already notorious, the Stones were essentially simply part of the British blues revival, a covers band (a very good one), and they'd run out of material to cover. Rehearsals in Ken Collyer's Jazz Club, Newport St were petering out, and their manager (& Brian Epstein's former press secretary), Andrew Loog Oldham, stepped out into Leicester Square for a breath of fresh air and a think. Walking along, he hears a toot from a Rolls-Royce. It's the Fabs, on their way back from yet another awards dinner (Variety Club GB, as it happens), well-fed & quite 'refreshed'. "Why the long face, Andrew?" Climbing into the Roller, he explains. "Don't you worry!" cry John & Paul. "We'll help you out!" and they turn the car round and off to Newport St. In they walk. "All right, wack?" "mumble, mumble". Sitting down at a table in the corner, they put their heads together and 25 minutes later they present the Stones with their ticket to fame & fortune.

What the Stones and certainly what Andrew Loog Oldham didn't know, was that Lennon & McCartney had pretty much had the song already written out, and the huddle over the table was a bit of a conjuring trick to make it look like they could write hits at lightning speed. But the trick worked sufficiently that once the session was over, Andrew Loog Oldham took Mick'n'Keef back to the flat they were sharing, and basically locked them in the kitchen until they produced a song of their own. And that was the beginning of the Jagger/Richard partnership and the beginning of the end for Brian Jones as leader of the Stones.

Ken Collyer himself is a significant figure in all this. After the WWII the Glenn Miller style of big band went out of fashion, and jazz split into two camps, modern (be-bop) and trad. The split was deep and bitter. You were either with Ronnie Scott & the boppers, or you were with Ken Collyer and the trads.

Ironically, it was the trads that opened the future of pop music. They wanted to take jazz back to its roots, stripped of all the lush orchestration of the big band years. And in investigating the roots of jazz, they instigated, first, skiffle, and then the blues explosion, which led of course to the British Invasion of 1963/4. Et tout le reste est littérature

For Season of the Ukulele 438, we're playing a song from an artist whose birthday is between July 5 and 12. Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra was born on July 9, 1947. Here's Yellow Magic Orchestra's song, "Behind the Mask", for concert ukulele, with overdubs of ubass, whistling, and vocals.

Jim Kerr and Jack White share a birthday, which is today. So does Courtney Love

I have been busy this week preparing my first gig for months (this Friday Night in a local bar). So I thought I wouldn't get time to enter, but I woke this morning with the first verse of this alternative to "Happy Birthday to You!" going around in my head. Then, between sleep and awake, I jotted down some ideas for the next verses and the chorus. I eventually got up and hacked and chiselled at it till it more or less worked.

I hope our kind host will accept this as it doesn't reference my favourite recording artist... Let's see if I am inspired by that to come up with something before Sunday.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy:

As you might have heard, yesterday was Ringo Starr's 80th birthday!

Here is one of his Beatles songs:

Attention all seasonistas! I appreciate you bringing all of your videos to me, I want to say "Thank You" for making this birthday boy's week so special. Please, keep bringing in more videos if you can! I want to hear more. Once again, thank you.

I'll give this one a try..."The Shape I'm In", by Robbie Robertson of the Band (born July 5th)

Ringo remembers nearly.

Originally sung by the late great Bon Scott of AC/DC - here is a song which should be played on ukulele more often. Performed here by Paul (u-bass), Jasmine (ukulele), Sandra (cajon), Chris (ukulele) and Meredith (vocals).

SOCIAL DISTANCING NOTE: This was recorded in Canberra, Australia where we've been pretty much COVID-free for months. If this is not the case where you live, please don't stand this close to each other!!

Black Ukulele (above) inspired me to have a crack at some rock stylings.. Here's some Steppenwolf. Lead Guitarist Michael Monarch born July 5. Plugged in with chorus and reverb dialled up. Some 3rd position harp.

While I couldn't do it justice, I'd love to hear someone do a uke-blues version of Willie Dixon's Hootchie Cootchie Man.

On the seventh hour
Of the seventh day
Of the seventh month
The seven doctors say,
"He was born for good luck
And that we'll agree."
I've got seven hundred dollars,
So don't you mess with me.

'Cause you know I'm here
Everybody knows I'm here
Yes I'm the Hootchie Cootchie Man
And everybody knows I'm here.

Hello again, Dave! I have just had a most horrendous, plumbing-related morning, which started when a young man arrived at an ungodly hour to inspect the inner workings of our septic tank (we were expecting him on 7th September, according to the letter we received, but, apparently, the day and month were reversed and should have read 9th July!) Anyway, the upshot was that I found myself out in the garden in my pyjamas trying to explain the finer points of our drainage system; only to retreat indoors for a bath and discover that the hot water cylinder was leaking!

I decided that I deserved a bit of light relief, so took time off to do this song, co-written by Polish-born lyricist, Jack Yellen, whose birthday was 6th July ... Alan has already done a splendid version of his song, "Sugar."

A favourite of mine from when I first heard it in the late 70's I guess