Ralph’s Blog Archives – 2004
Ralph Shaw, our Illustrious Leader, writes:
My purpose in starting this uke-log of the meetings and activities of the Vancouver Ukulele Circle is to give those people who are unable to be at the a meetings a chance to get a flavour of what they missed. I can tell you now that not all the information will be entirely accurate. As I sit down to update this uke-log in the days after any given meeting I will be sure to have forgotten some key moments and one or two worthy performances and I hope that feelings won’t be hurt. I will do my best but if you notice any omissions or major inaccuracies please feel free to email them to Wendy Cutler so that corrections can be made.
These are the write-ups from previous years. Current year entries are on
Ralph’s Blog page.
Other years: see Blog Archives
Vancouver Ukulele Circle Meetings 2004
December 21, 2004
VUC Christmas/Winter Celebration. Performances: Peter Murphy did an instrumental – Carol of the Bells; Lorene – Hawaiian 12 days of Christmas; Virginia, Cynthia Nugent (there for the first time) and Anne Fleming – Santa Baby; Guy did Greensleeves, his first performance at the uke circle ever! Ronin – It’s Just Not Christmas Without You (a song he wrote); Lorene did steel guitar Crawdad Song; Ole (his first time) did a song – Dancing With You; I did Burglar Song. Gordon (his uke was out of tune and he borrowed Peter’s. As soon as he strummed it, he said “oh wow”. I said, “It’s time for an upgrade!”) did Kingston Town (Ub40 tune); Pam and Hilary – Pam sang a song she’d written and Hilary did a wonderful dance.
This was a lovely Christmas party. The Common Room was beautifully decorated in blue and white by the co-op social committee. There were candles on the tables and a roaring log fire on the TV screen!
A touching beginning for the evening was that I went with Pam and Aletha to apartment 104 where there is a girl called Lisa. She will be 4 years old on Jan 14th and she has cancer. Pam left her a treasure chest of fairy goodies as a gift from the fairies. Pam and Aletha knocked on the door and hid around the corner. Lisa found the gifts and before going outside she looked up at the sky and said “thank you, fairies!”
November 16, 2004
Original Joe’s. About eight of us there for dinner, and another 8 or so joined later. New songs – Pearly Shells and Who’s Sorry Now. Pam Burns gave me a CD of a song she had written for Hannah Smith, the little girl who did of cancer and had a devout belief in fairies till the end.
My mission is to put together a bound book of songs for the VUC, so I need them all in digital form, so I have asked people to type them out and email them to me.
There tonight included Pam – sang Tonight You Belong To Me; Ronin – did a nice song but his uke went way out of tune!; Ann – Two Brothers, a civil war song – one wore blue and one wore grey; Peter Murphy – Waltzing Matilda, and Little Drummer Boy; Gordon – Honey Pie; Emi and Virginia – Ukulele Lady; Anne Fleming – a Tom Paxton song; Brad – Blackberry Blossom. All nice performances. Before the performances I did a short seminar on mic technique.
New people were Heather (knows Wendy, her partner is Ole, who I gave a uke lesson to a few years ago) and John and Ann Taylor (John knows Gerry Teahan and he plays the banjo).
October 19, 2004
A somewhat smaller turnout than we’ve been getting, but still good – at least 16 people. I took my small PA, and Ron took an amp for his bass. Instead of taking requests, I planned the songs so that they could rotate month by month. Our new “ending” song, Goodbye Sweetheart, was introduced this month.
Performance time: Anne Fleming did a Ramones song; Gordon did Surfer Girl; Peter did Rainbow Connection; Virginia did Dream a Little Dream; Ronin did Dream (Everly Bros); Brian did Wonderful World, and another song; I had my backing music and did The Frog Song, and Paper Moon.
September 21, 2004
4th Year Anniversary, at Original Joe’s. 32 RSVPs for dinner. The evening was organised mostly by Andrew, Virginia, Emi and Wendy. We met at 6pm for dinner. Our special guest was George Cook – he contacted me yesterday. He visits Vancouver every year in September for two weeks from Honolulu – his ancestors were missionaries who went to Hawaii in the 1820s, and his father was a very good guitar player. I set up my amp, and George entertained us with Hawaiian songs and talk while we ate. He had bought himself a bright blue Mahalo uke for $35 from Rufus’s and is thrilled with it.
I sang The Way You Look Tonight for Kath, as it is our 13th anniversary and I forgot to give her a present!, and I sang Hi Tiddley Hi Ti Island. We had door prizes: Kids DVD, vouchers for Original Joes, a chord poster, and two James Hill CDs. After 20 minute break, we had …
Performance time – Ted – two songs of his own, played on guitar; Pam (aka Marlene Gish of the Valley) did Moonlight Becomes You, and Five Foot Two; Tom, and Brian Lohnes – Give Me a Kiss To Build a Dream On, and another song – Brian’s unique style has really developed. Andrew (aka Trooper) did Hello My Baby; Art & Lorene did three songs; Ann Foster – They Called the Wind Mariah (but instead she sang Ralph!). Peter Murphy did Over the Rainbow, and Moonlight Becomes You, and 12th St. Rag; Carol (aka Lucretia) did a nice song which I can’t remember. Mai-Kewl-Ele (Michael-ele) did Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, and Fly Me to the Moon; Virginia & Emi did World On a String, with Emi on egg-shaker and additional percussion. I did Why Don’t Women Like Me, Don’t Get Your Legs Waxed In the Church, and I Like Bananas, with everyone playing along.
We Ended with Country Roads, and I’ll See You In My Dreams. I also, earlier, put up the picture of our first meeting, and read some excerpts from this diary.
August 17, 2004
First part of blog written by Wendy, as explained below.
At Original Joe’s. 27 people showed up, including two new people. We added a new tune: Swimmin’ With the Wimmin. There was a “meeting” on the subject of Sharing the Burden, at which we elected (really volunteered) officers as follows:
Treasure & Librarian: Brad
Secretary & Membership – Wendy (the reason Wendy wrote this month’s notes, an idea that was dropped right away, fortunately for us all – comment by Wendy)
Name Tags: Ann Foster
Repertorist: tba
Empress: Virginia
Cabinet positions: Pam & Emi
Artistic Director: Ralph
Ralph will do a workshop for people who want to lead songs.
James Hill played Paperback Writer, and he said goodbye for a year. He was here with his girlfriend, Anne.
Other performers: Pam; Emi & Virginia; Rock – Hawaiian Sunset; Peter; Stan – Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out; Rock led Won’t You Be My Lucky Star. Ralph sang My Echo, My Shadow & Me (request from Pam), an Ink Spots song, and English Country Garden. Others: Ronin, with a Robert Johnson song, and Andrew – Tie a Yellow Ribbon.
Ralph, having read Wendy’s notes, added his own, which follow.
I suggested it would be good for other people to help with the little jobs of running the VUC. It was wonderful that for every job there was a volunteer: Brad – to photocopy songs; secretary – Wendy, & Empress Virginia was nominated into her esteemed position.
It was only the next day that it started to sink in that much of the running of the VUC was now out of my hands, and it now belongs to the members, and I should start getting used to that!
July 20, 2004
Original Joe’s again. Ralph in England. This evening was especially notable because of the presence of Bill & Lillian Bill Vander Zalm (friends of Shek – aka Rock). It was also noted that without me to run things, the meeting lacked leadership.
June 15, 2004
Original Joe’s again, but I didn’t take notes – Sorry!
May 18, 2004
The housing co-op needed the Common Room, so we found a new location (thanks to Wendy). Our first meeting at Original Joe’s Restaurant & Bar, upstairs on the SW corner of Broadway & Cambie. The acoustics are not great, but we found it very pleasant to be able to have a meal before the singing. (comment from Wendy: Those of us who had just been to the Ukefest in Santa Cruz were really taken with the setting of their regular meeting: a restaurant with a view of the water. We had talked about how attractive that was, and when the need came up to find a place quickly, I thought of this place, knowing that it was often not busy and it had a nice view of the city.)
Afterwards a few of us went to the Railway Club to watch Hal Brolund, and Petunia (a yodeller).
April 20, 2004
Fifteen people. Yusuke Kawakami came and talked about his uke making. Andrew told him he’s going to Saskatchewan on a guitar building course. I played a BBC piece on Resurgence of the Ukulele (brought by Brad).
Solos by: Carol = Streets of London; Virginia – Tonight You Belong to Me; Brad – an Arrogant Worms song; Suzy – a Paul Simon song; Peter – Lazybones. I played an edited clip of George Formby saying “It’s Turned Out Nice Again” and “Mama Never touched me!”. This was the send-off meeting before Virginia, Wendy, Michael and I go to Santa Cruz!
March 16, 2004
Big turnout, 19 people, including John McBain from the Barbershop choir, whom Wendy knows from folk dancing. I suggested the idea that we go in the April 4 Fools’ Day Parade dressed as George Formbys. I suggested the idea , then introduced Picasso Triggerfish (Steve Grigg) as an expert consultant to help us with our techniques. He showed us how to say “Turned Out Nice Again innit” with a laugh and also the wink. We then learned to play Lamppost, and had some discussion on costume, etc. We watched a scene from It’s In the Air, where George is in the Sgt. Major’s house.
Pamela brought and led I’ll Follow the Sun by the Beatles. Carol led Look What They’ve Done to My Song, and Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right. Anne Fleming read from a novel where George & Beryl Formby are leaders of a British Resistance Movement.
Performances: Ron Usher brought his dad’s Kalamazoo Tenor guitar and sang a song (a cowboy song) that had been recorded by his dad. He had obtained a copy the recording from Roy Forbes, and then was able to pass this onto the daughter of the woman that wrote it. (from 1950, released on a Vancouver label – Blue Jeans & Cowboy Boots, or something like that. Pam sang Yessir, That’s My Baby; Ted sang Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now; my Moveable Music Class sang Paper Moon, Yellow Bird, and Blue Skies/Shine On Harvest Moon.
February 17, 2004
There were twelve people. Carol brought several new songs and a heavy duty hole punch! Kathryn came from the Moveable Music School class, and Pamela Burns came for the first time, and another Ann. We watched some Smeck shorts and played songs.
January 20, 2004
Seventeen people. New person: Carol (plays a left handed uke in D tuning, ex-principal at Henry Hudson school; Brad made me laugh, he said “play some Hendrix”). We played most of the repertoire in order, getting as far as Sweet Georgia Brown.
Bernie sang Do the Time warp, from Rocky Horror, and he talked about making the arrangement. Brad played Whish I Had a Pencil Thin Moustache (by Jimmy Buffett).
I introduced “Ukuleles in Literature” by reading a comic strip and excerpts from the NYTimes and then a paragraph from p 90 of the Small Bachelor by P.G. Wodehouse.
