THE DANGERFIELD OF INSTRUMENTS
Nova Scotia festival aims to bring the maligned ukulele some respect
It’s not easy to love the ukulele. The instrument has a bad reputation, a tricky name to spell and very little street cred.
To make matters worse, recordbreaking rains made the First International Ukulele Ceilidh in Liverpool last weekend nearly inaccessible to anyone travelling from Halifax.
Still, diehard ukulele enthusiasts soldiered on. The festival’s headquarters were housed at the Liverpool Curling Club, where ukulele cut-outs dangled from the ceiling and tables covered the red and blue curling courts. Vendors selling ukuleles, beach paintings and Hawaiian shirts lined the far wall.
John Chalmers Doane was among those moseying through the displays. The Nova Scotia legend championed a ukulele program in the province’s public school system from the late 1960s to the early 1980s and was awarded the Order of Canada for his work.
“ In those years,” he says, picking up a ukulele, “ we had thousands and thousands of kids across Canada learning musical depth, reading, harmony and rhythm.” One famous concert featured 1500 ukulele players in the Halifax Metro Centre.
But in the 1990s the money ran out and interest in the ukulele waned.
“ I hope the ukulele’s value is coming to light again,” Chalmers says, absently strumming a few chords. “ It’s not a pseudo-anything. It’s a real experience that can reach anyone.”
A vendor named Dan Frank agrees. “ The uke is the ultimate portable instrument and you can play any kind of music on it, from bebop, the blues, to classical. Last night the British Ukulele Orchestra played Yes Sir, that’s My Baby and Smells like Teen Spirit, both in the same program.”
Ukuleles were popular from 1900 to 1920 due in part to a public obsession with anything Hawaiian — grass skirts, hula hoops and pineapples — then again in the 1940s and ’50s, due to entertainers like George Formby in Britain and Arthur Godfrey in the United States, though not everyone who helped popularize the ukulele is included among the instrument’s benefactors.
“ Don’t ever say ‘ Tiny Tim’ to me,” says Frank.
The ukulele can be soothing and cheerful as well. At the conference’s Gospel Jam, words with ukulele chords were projected overhead, while about 80 people strummed their ukes to hymns like The Old Rugged Cross.