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
JPG: I mentioned “Gentle Mandolin,” earlier. That song was influenced by the birth of your son. It has a very lullaby feel to it and you cover “Over the Rainbow.” “Akaka Falls” is another ballad that is almost a lullaby. Were those consciously or subconsciously influenced by your son?
JS: Maybe. I never think about it that way but you could possibly be right ‘cause after my son was born I felt like a different person. When I got married, my wife and I we still felt a little same. Of course it was special but when we had our son, I feel like a dad now. I feel like a parent. (slight laugh) It’s very odd. It’s definitely changed in the way I feel about things and the way I do things.
Even musically, my interpretation of songs, I definitely hear a difference. I phrase certain things differently. The dynamic of songs that I have been playing for years have changed tremendously; where I think the peak of the song a few years ago versus today is so different. Places that I would normally be really aggressive and build it up, I kind of do the opposite now. I take it down and I bring it up somewhere else, which is something I’ve never done before. I feel like there’s been a tremendous change in me. So, I’m sure that influences my song choices, even the music I listen to.
You should hear what we play in the house now. It’s all kid songs, right? (slight laugh). We have this CD that my mom got for my son. Basically, they insert his name throughout the CD. For example they’re singing a song about counting and it would be like, “One, two, three, Chase come with me.” All these silly kid songs but it’s neat ‘cause I guess they just insert the child’s name in the CD. So, we listen to these songs over and over and over. He’s only three months old now. Maybe in another three months, it will start driving me crazy. (laughs) “I can’t listen to this anymore!” But it’s funny because, sometimes, I’ll be sitting with my ukulele with him and I’ll start strumming those songs for him. I’ll start playing those tunes for him and singing it to him.
I don’t know how to explain it but I do feel different I play and I don’t know if it’s better or worse. It’s just different. Certain songs that were where I played it a little bit more consistent dynamically from beginning to end there tends to be a lot more peaks and valleys now.
JPG: Can you give me an example of one that’s changed?
JS: One song, for example, is a piece called “Orange World.” That’s a bluegrass influenced piece. I did play it that night that you were there. It was the last song that I played right before “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
That song up until a year ago or up until recently, I should say. If you listen to my other recordings of that, for example my live album which I did two years ago, it’s just hard-hitting, aggressive from top to bottom. Now, it never occurred to me that there could be a lot of these low points to the song where you can lay the tempo back a little bit. Bring it way down dynamically. I have a lot more fun with it. I’m sure it has a lot to do with maturity (slight laugh) and you don’t have to play everything so fast and loud but it’s really about the contrast and what’s right for that particular piece.
In the past, I could have probably sat down and charted it out and thought, “Okay. Let’s bring this section down. Let’s do this here. Let’s do that here.” But I think it’s different when it starts to evolve naturally, organically, as you’re playing it, and then all of a sudden you feel, “Oh, let’s bring this section down.” and you just do it spontaneously. Then you’re like, “Oh wow! It brings a whole different dimension to the piece.”
That’s always interesting. I love discovering things like that. As much as I’ve played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” there are still nights where I’ll come across something. I’ll be “Ahhh! That was kind of cool.” It was just something that was very spontaneous, just something that I felt at that moment and you just go for it and you’re like, “Oh yeah, that was cool.” Then it becomes part of the arrangement and you do it all the time after that. That’s just the evolution of the songs that you play. Sometimes, things happen once or twice and then they never happen again.
JPG: Yeah, according to whether or not it works or sounds right to you, which is what it’s all about.
JS: Yeah.
*JPG: Well, who knows, maybe that could be your next album, a lullaby album. *
JS: (laughs) Yeah, it’s funny because I did a Disney Record ( Ukulele Disney ). All Disney songs. There were pieces from Little Mermaid, some of the modern ones like Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie the Pooh …. I think there were like 14 Disney songs. Like Across the Universe, it was only released in Japan. (slight laugh) It was funny because when that project came in, my wife was pregnant. So, it was like the perfect time because I was thinking about the baby. We were buying baby things. We were dressing up his room, the nursery room. It was the perfect time to do a Disney kids album.
JPG: Listening to you is amazing because you’ve rewired people’s thinking about the ukulele, about what’s possible, about what it can sound like because maybe it’s a mainland thing where there’s that traditional type of playing…Is that something that people bring up to you all the time, and you just shrug it off at this point or do you see it as a great happy accident that this is happening?
JS: It’s funny when people tell me things like, “Oh, I didn’t know the ukulele could do that or sound like that,” I totally understand. I totally get it because for me too, I was in the same boat. When I was a kid, I never thought I would be doing the things that I am doing today. I feel like when they have those little epiphanies, “Oh my gosh! The ukulele could sound like that or like this.’ I remember feeling the same way when I would hit a wrong chord voicing and thought, ‘Oh, that sounds like a koto,” (slight laugh) or play a little lick and be like, “Hey, that reminds me of a banjo thing,” or trying to figure out new ways to strum the instrument and then think to myself, “That reminds me of like a flamenco guitar strum.” I have those epiphanies all the time.
It’s great because I never know what that new idea is going to be until it happens. Some things you think about it from the beginning. “Oh yeah, I’m looking for a new sound. What am I going to do?” For some people it’s like maybe buying a new effect pedal or a new DI (direct input) or microphone or something to alter the sound that they already have. For some people it may just be “I have an idea for a new finger technique where I can alternate these two fingers on this string and the thumb to play eighth notes here.” It could be anything. A lot of the things that I do that are unique, a lot of ‘em I stumbled on by accident or trying to mimic something but didn’t really know how. (slight laugh) It’s almost like being a baby and just sounding out things in the beginning and then all of a sudden you can say your first words.
That’s how my approach has always been with the ukulele from the time I was a kid because when I first started playing the ukulele everything was by ear. I didn’t understand what a G7 chord meant or if I would see like a C7th suspended 4th chord, what is that? All I knew was okay, I put my finger here and press down here and then strum the strings. That was how I learned how to play. So, everything was just by ear. I would listen to something and, “That doesn’t sound right. Okay, that sounds close but…ah, but okay that sounds right. That’s what I’m looking for.” It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I got into reading music and music theory and all that kind of stuff. Once I dug into that, being introduced to music theory made everything so much easier. I would actually catch up to the concepts a lot easier because I already knew what they sounded like and I was already doing them. I was like, “Oh, okay. Now I understand why I do that or why I do this.”
So, I really think that when you come across these cool moments, it’s really just by experimenting, trying it. And I tell you, man, 9,999 times out of 10,000 (laughs) it doesn’t sound so good but you have that one moment that becomes you’re breakthrough moment and that lightbulb goes off. That’s a big part of it, too. When you’re playing and you’re just going for it, you have to be able to recognize that that is something useful. Sometimes I’ll come up with something — there may be a little chord voicing or a progression or a lick — and I can’t figure out why it sounds the way it does but it sounds cool and I like it. Then, I’ll store it in the back of my mind and, maybe, six months down the road, I’ll be arranging something and I’ll look at the chords and I’ll think, “You know what? That voicing that I used, that I came up with a few months ago, that works right here.” Then, you use it. That’s what I’m talking about when the change becomes the point or that unique, specific moment in the song that makes the arrangement special.
JPG: Obviously, all successful musicians have to have some degree of this but it sounds even more so in your case that you must have patience and the ability to seek things and discover things and not be frustrated as you’re trying to discover them.
JS: Patience is so important in music not just when you’re performing but when you’re practicing. I feel very grateful the way that I got turned on to music because there was no…goal. I wasn’t learning a method where I needed to finish this method book by the end of this month and whatever like when you’re learning the piano or when you’re learning the violin. There’s a method and you have all these steps that you need to take to get to the next level and then to get to the next level. When you get through so many levels then you have your first recital. Then, you have so many recitals then, I don’t know, maybe your dream is to play for one of the big symphonies somewhere.
With the ukulele there was really no goal. When I was a young teenager, I never thought to myself, “I want to be a touring solo ukulele player.” (slight laugh) So, I basically had all the time in the world to just play. I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere because I had no idea that I would be doing what I’m doing. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I thought I was going to be a school teacher or a politician (laughs). In the meantime, while trying to figure all this stuff out, I was playing my ukulele all the time. I never really thought of it as practice. I just loved playing. Every time I had a free moment I would pick it up and I’d be strumming tunes or trying to come up with new ideas. It was just fun. It’s probably the equivalent to playing video games. I never played any video games when I was a kid or even playing sports. I was horrible at sports. I never went to the park to play basketball with my buddies. Nobody wanted to play with me because I was so terrible. (slight laugh) So, I would just sit at home and play my ukulele. That was what I loved doing. A lot of kids do that. They play sports. I don’t think necessarily all of them have dreams of being the next Michael Jordan or Joe Montana but they play and they love it and they have a great time. That’s how I always approached the ukulele.
*JPG: I would imagine that the documentary on you, Life On Four Strings, deals with that since it chronicles your life from childhood to present day.
JS: Definitely. It talks about all of that. How I started out. My mom was my first teacher, and she’d teach me basic chords, playing traditional Hawaiian music. It also goes into how I discovered the electric ukulele sound and my experimentation with amplifiers and distortion pedals and things like that and then coming full circle, back to getting rid of all the effects and going back to learning my instrument again, appreciating the natural sound of the ukulele and learning to use my hands and my fingers to manipulate the timbre and the tonal qualities of the instrument.
JPG: Was this something director Tadashi Nakamura came to you and wanted to do or was this something that you put feelers out because you wanted to tell your story?
JS: What happened was there’s an organization called CAAM, the Center for Asian American Media. They produce a lot of films for PBS. One of the producers at CAAM, his name is Don Yong. He wanted to do this documentary on me. He talked to the executive producer of CAAM who said, “Yeah, sure let’s do it.” They got a budget together and all that and then they approached me and they said, “We want to do this documentary on you, would you be interested?” I said, “Oh yeah. Definitely.” That’s when they contacted Tadashi Nakamura because they told me, “We know this really young filmmaker in L.A. and he’s amazing and I think you guys would work well together.” So actually, they contacted me before they contacted Tad. When Tad expressed interest in doing it that’s when they put us together.
JPG: Does it show how you’ve changed the perception of the ukulele and then you see people like Eddie Vedder and Paul McCartney and others using the instrument?
JS: Unfortunately, they couldn’t really get any interview time with Paul McCartney or Eddie Vedder. (slight laugh) which would have been really cool but they do go back to the history of the instrument, even how it was popularized in the States. He goes through the whole thing with Tiny Tim and all of that. It’s really interesting.
JPG: Have you met either one and talked shop and they pick your brain about playing the ukulele?
JS: Oh my gosh, I would love to meet them. I would love to just take Eddie Vedder out to lunch and talk ukulele with him. (slight laugh)
JPG: You being such a Beatles fan, being with Paul McCartney, being in his presence…
JS: Oh yeah. Paul McCartney definitely. I’m sure everyone wants to take Paul McCartney out to lunch. (laughs)
JPG: I see on your website that you have tour dates going through the first portion of summer. You’ve been pretty consistent with releasing an album over the past two years. Are you already planning for something or see what happens?
JS: Yeah, see what happens. I love taking things one step at a time. I’m just enjoying it all now. I definitely want to see where all of this leads. There’s gonna be a lot of things happening with the film. I think in May it’s going to air on PBS national in primetime. That’ll be really great. So, we’ll see what’s coming up then. Right now, I’m just having a blast touring on the bus.
JPG: I’m looking at your tour schedule and I see some open time where you could return to Bonnaroo.
JS: Ohhhhhh. That would be cool. Hopefully. I would love to go back there. I really enjoyed that festival. , I love the festival circuit because everyone there is so excited to be there and they’re just so passionate about the music. To be in that kind of environment it’s inspiring. It fuels you. You feel great after it, and they’re always so pumped up and so supportive. It’s always a nice feeling. True music fans.
