It’s been the brunt of countless jokes and chuckled at as an oddity. Tiny and portable, it’s been played by top musicians as well as buskers and novices. Yet with its measly four strings and miniature body, this diminutive instrument packs a powerful wallop, begging any listener not to smile and sing along. Of course, we’re talking about the mighty ukulele, the 150-year old member of the lute family that has had a startling comeback in recent years, plucking at the heartstrings of young and old.
It’s the latest episode of “riches” in the ukulele’s repeating rags-to-riches tale. While its birth year is unknown, the uke first appeared in Hawaii around the end of the 19th century and was based upon the design of two Portuguese instruments, the cavaquinho and the rajão. Literally meaning the “jumping flea,” the ukulele’s accessibility made it the perfect device for buskers, and it quickly evolved into a staple of Hawaiian musicians. With its easy portability, twangy sound and identification with the exoticism of the islands, the uke also became a favorite with jazz musicians of the Roaring Twenties.
As technology advanced, it was popular entertainer Arthur Godfrey, with his many television and radio programs, who led the mid-century boom in the ukulele’s popularity. As Lyle Ritz, the “father of ukulele jazz,” said in a 2007 interview with NPR, “so many people just had to have ukes.” By 1968, however, thanks in large part to Tiny Tim’s hit “Tiptoe Through The Tulips,” the little brother to the guitar had become something of a gag, a punchline, a comic’s prop. The ukulele crashed and burned in the ditch of kitsch.
Today, the once-maligned instrument has made a powerful recovery. Many attribute its return to popularity to Hawaiian musician Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole’s 1999 haunting rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” Hawaiian native Jake Shimabukuro further redefined the instrument’s possibilities when a video of him blazing through George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” went viral in 2006 with over 6 million hits. Since then, even hard rockers can’t seem to escape the warm embrace of the uku, as Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder proved this year with his solo album, Ukulele Songs. But it seems the four-stringed lute has always been in the background of popular culture. After all, who can forget Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters’ beautiful duet scene in The Jerk as they walk along the ocean with ukulele and trumpet in hand singing “Tonight You Belong To Me?”
“It symbolizes everything that the grand, polished machine of the music industry is not,” exclaimed Amanda Palmer, the female half of the post-punk cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls, in an April interview with the New York Times. In 2010 the virtuoso showed her love for the tiny instrument with the unexpected E.P. Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on her Magical Ukulele. Last year also saw the ukulele make a special appearance in the hit indie film Blue Valentine. In one scene, Ryan Gosling’s character plays the uke while singing “You Always Hurt The Ones You Love” as he longingly watches Michelle Williams’ character tap dance along. While the film doesn’t end well for either character, nobody can say that it was the uke’s fault. After all, how can someone hate on something so cute?
Santa Cruz’s own Michelle Kiba agrees. “It’s small, it’s friendly and when you strum it, you feel the vibrations all the way to your heart,” she says. Known as the “Ukulele Lady of Santa Cruz,” Kiba is the musical director of the Pa Mele ‘O Hokulea Ukulele Academy (or “Song Of The Morning Star”), which meets weekly in San Jose and Santa Cruz. When a bout of carpal tunnel syndrome stopped Kiba from playing the guitar, she was devastated until she happened to come across a ukulele in a music shop. “I picked up a ukulele and discovered it didn’t hurt to play!” she says. Since that fateful meeting, Kiba has gone on to tour Japan and Australia and even earned herself the honor of being a featured musician at the one and only Ukulele Hall of Fame, located in the also small-but-mighty state of Rhode Island.
Kiba is far from the only Santa Cruzan to appreciate the ukulele’s subtleties. The 1,200-member Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz (the “UCSC where you get a real education,” as the website boasts) is the largest ukulele club in the world and the subject of Nina Koocher’s recent documentary Under the Boardwalk: A Ukulele Love Story (the film takes its name from the song played at the beginning of every Ukulele Club meeting). Santa Cruz also has a ukulele shop, a ukulele open mic night, a ukulele news portal and, on occasion, Sunday morning gospel ukulele in Frederick Park. It should come as no surprise, then, that in 2000 and 2001—long before any bearded Brooklynite had thought of it—Santa Cruz’s own Oliver Brown grabbed his ukulele and took the town by storm (and Best Musician awards in Metro Santa Cruz’s Goldies contest).
From its modest birth on the islands to its current role in hipster stardom, the rise of the ukulele represents a love story for powerful things in small packages. And while nobody knows for sure just where this love story will take the plucked lute, its diehard fans are sure to keep plucking away, spreading high-pitched joy to whoever will listen. It’s like the Ukulele Lady of Santa Cruz says: “Everyone I meet via the uke is happy. Surround yourself with happy people and you will have a happy life.” Play on mighty ukers, play on.
