Jerryc41
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At 97, Dick VanDyke is learning to play the ukulele.
Dick VanDyke - Learning to Play
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Bill Sheehan
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That is so cool !!!!
Mike $
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That put a huge smile on my face. Dick looks great, and not just "for a 97 year old." I hope to see him play some tunes after he masters that G7.
oldjazznut
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Not a recent thing, this TV clip is 8 years old. Some may know his brother Jerry played tenor banjo
Hopefully others may see this and it might encourage them to give the ukulele a try!
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I'm the staff photographer for the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic/Big Band of Barristers/LegalVoices. In 2017 the orchestra did a concert at UCLA Royce Hall, Dick was the guest host and performer. What an absolute gentleman and consummate professional, easy going and always had a smile. Glad to see he's added uke to his arsenal.
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oldjazznut
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Re: my posted video of him playing 8 years ago. Doesn't sound like a beginner then.
There is some confusion here. I think whoever did that Instagram post, it was their first lesson, not Dick's, and Dick just happened to be there.
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Let’s just hope Dick isn’t holding his uke the next time he trips over that footstool.
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It seemed very obvious to me that he was faking it, his left hand was not making real chords.
If you look closely, you can also see that Dick isn't even continuously strumming, either. Maybe touching the top string at most, sometimes not moving much at all...which isn't at all what we're hearing.
I'm not meaning to cast aspersions on Dick or the clip. Lipsyncing and/or pre-recorded backing tracks is just how it's mostly done. It's not really practical to record live music while recording TV or film, unless that's the primary goal of the recording (eg, a concert recording). Live vocals over a backing track at the outside, but often just straight lipsyncing over pre -recorded vocals, which is of course what Dick had done for Mary Poppins, Chitty, and the rest.
(There are exceptions of course. The early years of The Midnight Special TV series and the movie version of Les Mis were famously all about live recording, but even Les Mis was live vocals only. Performers were hearing the orchestra via in-ear monitors. That's how rare it is, though! We could probably list all of them in a couple of paragraphs.)
The IG post is definitely from Dick. Worth following the link just to see what he's up to. His feed is every bit as charming as you'd hope, which is encouraging news all by itself. It's also a little unclear if it's his first lesson EVER or his first with that teacher....but I'm thinking from context that it's his first lesson ever, which of course isn't necessarily the same as saying it's the first time he's ever held an ukulele. Clearly not!
Captain Simian
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My father took up the uke at 87. For the last 3 years of his life he played everyday until the last week of his life. When he was cremated I made sure he had his cap (which he never left the house without it) and a uke. I couldn’t bear the idea of sending him off with his favorite uke. Not that it’s valuable, I just want it to remember all the good times we had playing.
oldjazznut
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I first searched on YouTube and that clip was all I got. After seeing at least a dozen hits about it on Bing, I guess Dick was faking in the video, but he did a good job. Looks fine without paying close attention.
I wasn't kidding when I said that I wasn't intending anything negative! Dick can sing just fine! He released a number of albums, and has sung on stage -- it's just that whenever we saw him on screen for anything other than a handful of variety specials, his voice was recorded separately from the visual recording of the performance, independently of the music.
I mentioned lip-synching. In practice, the process is often pre-recording >> lip synch during performance >> re-record performance in post-production with the performer intentionally trying to synch their post-recording to the visuals of themselves singing. THAT's the one that WE hear: the post-performance synced version.
Dick has been doing this since the late 50s, so yeah, he'd had over 60 years practice by the time he did that clip with Jerry!! And this approach to "recording" performances goes back to the dawn of the sound era. It's one of the first things that budding editors learn to do to this very day.
And on top of that, Dick really is one of the all-timers. I love him so much! I remember seeing him in Bye Bye Birdie in the early 60s, with Mary Poppins, The Dick Van Dyke Show (still to me one of the top 2 workplace comedies of all time; MTM is the other) , and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang pouring out on top of each other. He's not far behind The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and Julie Andrews for people who utterly dominated my own pop-culture landscape in that decade.
His voice is kind of like Fred Astaire's to me. Not at all at the pinnacle of a Sinatra or whatever, but sweet, sincere, and direct in a way that more polished performers can afford to de-emphasize in order show off their chops. Well, Fred and Dick had fewer chops as singers, so they leaned into their longer suits of likability and empathy, and were able to make their performances connect.
It still makes me incredibly happy to see Dick playing an ukulele in a TV show, even if the appearance is more prophetic than precise!
A number of news outlets have picked up Dick's post of course, and lo and behold, some of them have done some actual research to flesh out the story! This piece in HuffPost quotes a 2009 interview with Dick for a site called "Interviews by Spencer" -- never heard of it before, but it's a terrific interview! I love that enthusiasts like Spencer have been able to find their way to people like Dick and get into some of the ancient magics.
For example, Dick had never sung before Bye Bye Birdie, and was convinced that he couldn't! But he needed to figure it out, because he'd married and started a family at a very early age, and was desperate to provide for them. That's also what led to him dancing, which Fred Astaire singled out in a conversation about the state of dancing on Broadway at the time in a radio interview that Dick heard while he was driving, and Dick nearly ran off the road when he heard it! Understandably!
Remarkably enough, his introduction to ukulele was by Buster Keaton!!! At least that's how it was framed in the article, although to me it sounds more like the ukulele was his introduction to Buster Keaton.
They became close, and Dick delivered the eulogy at his funeral, as he had done for Stan Laurel earlier.
Anyway, it's the 60th anniversary of Dick, Buster, and the ukulele, in whichever order they should be prioritized, making it any case the perfect time for Dick to start! I've heard the saying that the best time to start saving money is 10 years ago, and the second best time to start is right now, and I think that probably goes for playing ukulele too.
For example, Dick had never sung before Bye Bye Birdie, and was convinced that he couldn't! But he needed to figure it out, because he'd married and started a family at a very early age, and was desperate to provide for them. That's also what led to him dancing, which Fred Astaire singled out in a conversation about the state of dancing on Broadway at the time in a radio interview that Dick heard while he was driving, and Dick nearly ran off the road when he heard it! Understandably!
Remarkably enough, his introduction to ukulele was by Buster Keaton!!! At least that's how it was framed in the article, although to me it sounds more like the ukulele was his introduction to Buster Keaton.
They became close, and Dick delivered the eulogy at his funeral, as he had done for Stan Laurel earlier.
Anyway, it's the 60th anniversary of Dick, Buster, and the ukulele, in whichever order they should be prioritized, making it any case the perfect time for Dick to start! I've heard the saying that the best time to start saving money is 10 years ago, and the second best time to start is right now, and I think that probably goes for playing ukulele too.
surfink
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Thanks for sharing this. Very fond memories of Dick Van Dyke Show. ("See Rob Write, Write Rob Write" was the episode I was in.)
OP
OP
Jerryc41
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He's an actor!
Wow—tell us more! Tell, tell!
You said it, Tim. I still member some of those priceless MTM Show episodes. The death of Chuckles the Clown; Mary dealing with insomnia (nobody has EVER portrayed better, on large screen or small, the agonized tossing and turning of an insomniac in bed); Mary arriving at a banquet, haggard and disheveled and looking like hell, to accept a big journalism award; and so many more.
And the supporting actors! The fabulous Chloris Leachman, Betty White, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Valerie Harper, even the little girl who played Chloris Leachman’s daughter. She’d arrive, discouraged, at Mary’s apartment and announce, “Boy, I sure could use a cookie!”
AZChris
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When I saw the thread title I thought someone had worked out a uke arrangement of the theme from the show. Get on that somebody.
It's so cool to see him still kicking and happy. He made me smile many times over the course of my life.
It's so cool to see him still kicking and happy. He made me smile many times over the course of my life.
