I'll remember this evening partly for the nice songs we strummed on our beloved ukuleles, and partly as a struggle between good and evil. Ken brought a bag of homegrown cherry tomatoes, fresh from his garden and naturally delicious. (Good.) Chris brought an enormous bag of peanut M+Ms. (Evil.) All of you who gave in to the dark side and went for the candy (you know who you are!) over the glorious, nutritious garden-fresh produce, remember this at your next dentist appointment.

We had two new players. Joe and Ariel (Nathan's cousin) who was just learning the ukulele. Chris was teaching him chords on the fly as we played.

This was Arlene's third session. I think we may have her hooked.

John brought in a new and different instrument: a banjolele. It looks like a shrunken banjo, has a banjo sound, but only four strings, and chords are formed as you would on a regular ukulele.

This was part two of our Colors of Music theme. We ran through many of the ones from our last session (see Previous Club Jams for Sept. 12, 2014) and added these new ones:

a) Fields of Gold (Eva Cassidy version)

b) When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along) by Al Jolson. We attempted to sing a "round" at the end but couldn't quite get there.

c) Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree (Tony Orlando and Dawn)

d) Yellow Submarine (Beatles)

e) Colour My World (Chicago) We had only the difficult tablature and not the usual simplified chords for this, and therefore didn't get very far.

f) The Yellow Rose of Texas

Apart from songs in the color theme, Vin did an excellent instrumental solo on Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head (B.J. Thomas). I'd like to try this as a group.

Chris, a music teacher by profession, played a song he had done for a class of 4th graders. It was The Marvelous Toy (Peter, Paul and Mary). We all had trouble with the undignified noises we were supposed to make to mimic the whoosh! and zing! and pfft! of the toy, but it was fun to try.

Ken, Chris and Vin messed around with the introduction of Listen to the Music (Doobie Brothers), comparing versions. That's a great, upbeat number we should look into doing one night.

The theme for our next session, Friday, Oct. 10, will be the theme songs from TV shows. I'm not sure if these have easy or difficult chords, but some of my suggestions are: Mighty Mouse, Patty Duke, Andy Griffith, Underdog, Mr. Ed, Make Room for Daddy, Bugs Bunny and Green Acres.

Everybody needs to reach back into childhood, recall your favorite television shows, then make suggestions in the Next Club Jam comments box.

-- Dan.