Vancouver Ukulele Circle Meeting – Tuesday February 16, 2016

Hello Strummers – Here’s my Luv-a-Lele Report!!

Love was in the air for sure. It was nice to meet some “old flames” who I
haven’t seen in a while: long time uke circle strummers, Cynthia and Ruth
blessed me with their beautiful presences.

We had a much longer 1st half than usual. This was totally my fault as I had
too much fun and let the time run away – no problem though. And the big news
tonight was Steve Edge’s announcement that the St. James Hall is definitely
saved!!! I didn’t quite catch the details (so don’t pass this on word for
word) but I gather that the United Church congregation was awesome in voting
that the St James property should remain a community-use building. And it
sounds like the City of Vancouver has bought the property and will be
leasing it to the St. James Society for years to come. That may not be exact
but the main point is, we ukulele players get to strum there for the
foreseeable future!

Performance time began with Ron singing Arthur Godfrey’s Ukulele song (which
uses GCEA as its main melody). Then Jason, a first-timer, who has owned a
uke for only 3 weeks, played the Jake Shimabukoru version of While My Guitar
Gently Weeps on Ukulele. Yeah, I know! Something told me he may have
acquired some previous expertise on guitar before trying ukulele. It was so
good. a tough act to follow, but follow Deryl did, and he followed it
sideways with a song called Crabs Walk Sideways.

Ed sang the British Isles folk song the Gypsy Rover. Johnny sang P.S. I Love
You, Tom sang and played Dos Gardenias in Spanish (or Portuguese? – I forgot
to ask). In case you didn’t catch the lyrics here’s a partial translation of
this unusual song that begins with a man giving his loved one two Gardenias
and ends like this: “But if one sundown the gardenias of my love [happen to]
die, it’s because they have divined that your love has betrayed me because
there exists another love.”

I’ll tell you what, if my “loved one” gave me a gift like that, I’d be
somewhat concerned!

February is Black History Month (which evolved from National Brotherhood
Week) and Boaz sang the hilarious Tom Lehrer song titled National
Brotherhood Week and is essentially a song about how everyone hates everyone
else except for that one week a year! Geoff sang Hooked on a Feeling. Tom
played Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and did this, not so much in tribute to Bowie,
as it was to Tom’s good friend Russ MacKay with whom he used to play this
song. Gary sang Cupid Draw Back Your Bow. Ronin gave us Desperado for the
late Glen Fry of The Eagles.

The whole night ended with a massive finale featuring: Tom, Gary, Boaz,
Gayle, Cynthia, Ronin, Ed and myself singing Put a Little Love in Your
Heart. It’s one we’re going to sing at Russ’s memorial later this month and
was also a perfect song for St Valentines Day.

Thanks to everyone who came out and participated in leading songs. I’m
thinking about Daphne Roubini (Ruby’s Ukes) who helped me with Baby it’s
Cold Outside and Carol McAusland and her young daughter Kai who did a
beautiful job of leading I’m Yours that even included a rap!!

A wonderful night. Thanks for coming out and making it what it is. You guys
are really a pleasure to work for. And I mean that! Please keep coming!!

Keep Strumming and smiling and I’ll see you next month on Tuesday March 15!

Ralph Shaw
http://www.ralphshaw.ca
https://www.facebook.com/ralphshawmusic