Most of us guitar pickers have a uke lying around somewhere. The Beatles played ukes, easy to take along when you jump into your car or the back of a cab to go jam. The uke is just kind of easy and fun to play.
Listening to it might be another story. Little tinkling strums on “Five Foot Two” and such is kind of corny. But there are some powerful good ukers out there.
Del Ray is one of those pickers. She has performed a few times in the northern VA area in recent years. She has devoured old Piedmont, country, and delta blues all her life (as she tells it), and she has taken her blues and boogie guitar stuff over to the uke.
Here are two videos from a blues uke workshop she taught in Reston a few days ago. (Unfortunately she isn’t playing her awesome resonator uke in these.)
- Del Rey plays Mama Don’t You Think I Know, from the playing of Papa Charlie Jackson
- Del Rey plays Rolling Log Blues, from the playing of Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas
(Thanks to Julie Mangin for recording these videos, and to Ann Granger and the whole Reston Uke Festival crew for making these workshops happen.)
I also mentioned that Del’s guitar playing is heavily influenced by blues and boogie piano in a .
Nothing like getting to swap brainwaves with other musicians who love to dig deeper into the wells of music.