I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Mike Pereira of MP Ukuleles. I learned of Mike’s instruments from one of my favorite Ukulele related forums at Ukulele Underground. Someone was complimenting his ukuleles, so I had to go check out his site. The next day I called him and started the process of ordering a custom instrument. UAS, thou hath an unnatural hold on thee.

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A few weeks ago, Michael Bloom (Jake Shimabukuro’s PR person) contacted me after he came across the About page for this site. On that page, I explain how Jake’s YouTube video of While My Guitar Gently Weeps inspired me to buy my first ukulele and then create Ukulelereview.com. He offered to send me some of Jake’s CDs,  but I already had all of them So I asked if he might be able to get me a short interview with Jake. He was kind enough to oblige and here we go…

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I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Jerry Hoffmann. He runs Boat Paddle Ukulele Company of New Haven Missouri. Jerry has developed a ukulele that has a unique shape that immediately caught my attention when I stumbled upon his website a few months ago. I was so interested in his Boat Paddle ukes, that I commissioned him to build one for me.

Julie: How did you originally become interested in the ukulele?

Jerry: It was Joe Brown’s rendition of I’ll See You In My Dreams at the Concert for George in 2002 that did it for me. I think that was the turning point for a lot of people who hadn’t considered the ukulele as a serious instrument up until then. I went out and bought a cheap uke right away, but there was no way that it could sound as good as Joe Brown’s old Martin. After becoming frustrated at the quality of ukes available, I decided to build my own, and then the frustration of not being able to build a great ukulele inspired me to keep building them.

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I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Heidi Litke and Aaron Keim. They both run Bean Sprout Ukulele Company, which builds the Bean Sprout banjo ukulele.

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I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Jim Beloff. He runs Flea Market Music Inc., which is a great community website with wonderful forums and a store that sells the popular made in the USA Fluke and Flea brand ukes.

Julie: How did you originally get interested in the ukulele?

Jim: I was a pretty good guitarist before getting into the uke. I was also a songwriter and big admirer of sophisticated theater and pop writers like Stephen Sondheim, James Taylor, Todd Rundgren, Jimmy Webb, Joni Mitchell, etc. Like many I thought the ukulele was a novelty instrument/toy with a high voice that wasn’t suited for nuanced chords and thoughtful lyrics. That all changed when I found a Martin tenor uke in 1991 at the Pasadena Rose Bowl flea Market. After a few days of playing this uke tuned down to DGBE (with a high D—a la “my dog has fleas) I became convinced that my kind of songwriting actually made more sense on a uke than it did on a guitar.

After spending a few weeks poring over old, out of print Cliff Edwards uke songbooks we pitched the idea of compiling our favorite arrangements from his books to a leading print music distributor. At the time they didn’t have any significant uke book offerings and they agreed to distribute what became our first songbook, Jumpin’ Jim’s Ukulele Favorites. Since then my wife Liz and I have published 18 Jumpin’ Jim’s songbooks with several new ones on the way.
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