Listening to Jake Shimabukuro, you can understand why he has been described as a ukulele virtuoso. Spreading his vision of what’s possible on the four-stringed instrument, his playing is leagues beyond its typical perception as a must-have slice of entertainment at a Hawaiian luau.
On his latest album, Grand Ukulele, he easily moves stylistically from classical to bluegrass, rockabilly and jazz and puts his spin on covers of Adele, Sting and Judy Garland.
Always looking to explore new directions, he found an ideal collaborator for the album in producer Alan Parsons (the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons Project) whose best advice was when to pair Shimabukuro with other players (“Ukulele Five-O”), an orchestra (“Missing Three” and “Gentle Mandolin,”) and when to leave him on his own (“Gentle Mandolin,” “1 4 3” and “More Ukulele”).
Shimabukuro’s breakthrough happened when his performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” became a Youtube sensation. Several years later, he recorded Across the Universe, an entire album of Beatles covers, which was released only in Japan. One can only hope that his record company makes it widely available.
Now with Grand Ukulele shows he is capable of making albums that are strong on melody and engaging on each listen.
A greater understanding of Shimabukuro and the ukulele comes about in concert. Watching him alone onstage, it’s apparent that what transpires is an extension of his patience, tenacity and experimental mindset.
JPG: Let’s start at the beginning of Grand Ukulele, and your decision to work with Alan Parsons.
JS: That was a dream come true, just meeting him. I never thought I’d ever be working with him. That was amazing.
JPG: Based on his background, I’m sure it was a dream come true, but what did you hope he’d bring to the proceedings that wasn’t on your previous albums or just bring out of you?
JS: Because he’s regarded as one of the greatest recording engineers, I wanted to see what he would make my ukulele sound like. That’s what I was most excited about. I wanted to see what his interpretation because he’s seen me perform several times, and how he thought I should be miked.
It was really great. I’m really happy with the sound that he captured and extremely happy about the way that the project turned out.
*JPG: The orchestrations on “Missing Three” and “Gentle Mandolin,” was that his idea or yours and he and Kip Winger brought it to fruition? *
JS: Yeah, those were his ideas. He would listen to some of my pieces and he would be like, “I think this one would be great with an orchestra.” or “This one would be great with a string quartet.” or “We should have drums and bass on this one.” But then, sometimes, I would have an idea like, “Maybe let’s have a rhythm section on this.” Then, he would listen to it and be like, “No, I think this one sounds really good as a solo ukulele piece.”
So, it wasn’t about adding things but it was about what was right for each song. There’s a song on the record called “1 4 3.” I’d actually recorded that on a previous record. There’s drums and bass on it. There’s keys on it, guitar, there’s a lot of instrumentation, even a string section and all that. When he came and saw me perform live I opened up the concert with that song. He loved the solo ukulele arrangement. That’s why he was like, “I know you recorded this on your previous album but it’s one of my favorite songs that you do. Can we do it as just as a solo ukulele number ‘cause I really think we should have a recording of a solo ukulele version.” He felt really strongly about that. So I was like, “Well, I love playing that song.” So I told him, “Sure, yeah, I would love to record it again.” And I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
JPG: That reminds me. When I saw you live, you plugged in to do “Dragon” so that it had more of an electric guitar tone to it, but it’s plugged in normally, isn’t it? It’s going through the PA system, right?
JS: Yes.
JPG: So, do you have it going through any foot pedals because it regularly has a tone that’s like a classical guitar or mandolin?
JS: “Dragon” is the one that I hardwire myself into my looper and all that stuff but when I’m not playing “Dragon” I’m just in a wireless. Basically, it’s my ukulele straight into the wireless; no pedals in front of the ukulele or anything. I’m plugged right into a DI [direct input] box. The only thing that the front of house engineer adds is a little bit of reverb. That’s it. A, and the rest, everything is just a pickup and the instrument.
There’s a cord that goes into the transmitter that’s attached to my belt. There is a cable. There’s always a cable. For “Dragon” because I use distortion on that I need to plug into the pedal board. That’s why I pull out the wireless and I plug into the other cable.
JPG: I see. Back to the Grand Ukulele, you’re covering songs by Adele and Sting and “Over the Rainbow.” What do you look for in a song to cover?
JS: I usually just cover songs that I like. Sometimes, when I’m just sitting with my ukulele in between shows or if I’m on tour, if I’m just backstage or in my hotel room, I’ll just start playing and, sometimes, I’ll play something and it’ll remind me of a tune that I’m familiar with. Then, it’ll prompt me to start digging into that tune a little bit. Sometimes, I’ll just think of a song and I’ll wonder to myself what it would sound like on the ukulele. And then I’ll start trying to arrange something, figuring out the melodies, things like that.
JPG: That reminds me of when you performed Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the idea that you need to find the song’s essence and then work out from there. Correct?
JS: Yeah. That’s exactly right. Whenever I cover a piece I don’t like just learning the melody and the chords. I want there to be something unique and specific to the arrangement that is very ukulele specific, whether it’s a chord voicing that I’ve never done before or a new technique that I’ve never used. I always want each arrangement for cover songs to have its own thing rather than just playing song after song after song.
The Adele song (“Rolling in the Deep”) I loved. For me it’s taking what I did with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” one step further because there are some independent finger work happening where you have one finger doing something on one string and you then you have your other finger playing a counter melody or a counter rhythm on another string. That was the idea behind that. But it moves and it plays very similar to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” They’re both in the same key and they use similar voicings in certain areas but the key was really using the strings independently
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