HISTORY OF THE UKULELE
According to the Smithsonian Institution, the ukulele was invented in the Hawaiian Islands by sailors from the Portuguese island of Madeira who came to Hawaii in 1879 to work in sugar plantations. It’ s a modification of a Portuguese instrument called the machete.
The uke became a national phenomenon on the mainland in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where thousands heard the instrument at the Hawaii exhibit. Suddenly, songs like“ Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula( Hawaiian Love Song)” were big sheet-music hits. Many popular performers of the 1920s and 1930s played the ukulele.
In an article about a Michigan ukulele festival, the Lansing State Journal recently listed the five“ most influential” ukulele players of all time:
• Roy Smeck and George Formby, both popular performers in the 1930s and 1940s.
• Arthur Godfrey, a 1950s television personality.
• Israel“ Iz” Kamakawiwo’ ole, the Hawaiian native who paired“ Over the Rainbow” with“ What a Wonderful World.”
• Contemporary artist Jake Shimabukuro, called“ the Hendrix of the ukulele,” who combines jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco. The island of Oahu is still home to four famous ukulele makers: Kamaka, Kanile`a, Ko`olau, and KoAloha.
Kamaka is the oldest, founded in 1916 by Samuel Kaialiilii Kamaka in the basement workshop of his home. In the 1920s, he set up a shop where he invented the pineapple body, an alternative to the traditional guitar shape. He died in 1953 and his two sons took over the business, and have since been joined by their children. •
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