We missed Ken this evening and therefore had no access to the computer and overhead projector, from where we usually read our chords. Paper copies of songs were our substitute.

Vin, Joe and I were the first to arrive and dove into Johnny Horton's number one hit from 1959, The Battle of New Orleans, as a warm up, the first of Vin's picks. The second was a bluegrass number titled Rocky Top. I heard a very very fast version on YouTube, but we slowed it to a more manageable speed.

Two sessions ago, the evening's theme was songs with numbers in the title or lyrics. A holdover from that night was Rock Around the Clock (Bill Haley and His Comets), a pick from Arlene, including every number there is up to 12. Now that Arlene had arrived, we did more thorough versions of The Battle of New Orleans and Rocky Top.

The country/backwoods feel of the first two songs put me in mind of Gotta Travel On (Billy Grammer 1958). I remember this as being a popular singalong in my boyhood.

Who can forget the heyday of the great beer commercials of the sixties? We did the Rheingold and Schaefer jingles. The Rheingold song is so easy (only two chords) that I'd recommend it as the very first song every ukulele player should learn.

Chris and Nathan have started a band of their own (with guitars, I think) called "One and a Half Strings", and already have a couple of dates to play in front of an audience. They played some of their songs for us: Christmas in New York; the theme to the TV show The Big Bang Theory; Let It Go (from the movie Frozen); Happy (Pharrell Williams); and the 1967 number one hit by the Association, Windy.

I had copies of Nothing Compares To You, the Sinead O'Connor hit (written by Prince). I like this song but it didn't translate well to the ukulele. We couldn't seem to get a nice rhythm going. Things picked up when Chris made xeroxes of the Happy song and we all played along. I know this is this year's smash hit, but all I really could do was sing "Because I'm hapeeeee...." over and over as Chris did the main vocals. (Have a listen to Al Yankovic's parody of this: Tacky.)

Next was the Searchers 1965 hit Love Potion #9, which we did at another session some time back. This is such a cool song, not too hard to play, and it came out very well.

As the clock was running down and we were low on material, we did Vin's pick, The Battle of New Orleans (yes, for the third time!), now that Nathan and Chris and Cris and Tom were with us. It was fine by me. I can't get enough of this song. I'd call it the hit of the evening. Then there was a repeat of the Rocky Top bluegrass song. Cris knew it enough to sing it and thinks she remembers the country band Alabama doing a version of it in the eighties.

Our penultimate number was immortalized in the Woodstock movie: Goin' Up the Country (Canned Heat). The last was the Cole Porter song Don't Fence Me In. I know it by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters. (Find this particular version on YouTube.) Lots of people recorded this, including Roy Rogers. Young and old can enjoy this catchy tune, perfect for any singalong.

In other news, Vin bought a new tenor ukulele from the Kanile'a company of Hawaii. Pretty impressive.....but not as impressive as his homemade (!) wooden kazoo. When I say homemade, I mean HE made it. Nathan brought his mother, Lisa, with him (he needed a ride), and Joe brought his wife, Virginia. Friends and music lovers, come down to the library every other Friday with your mothers, wives, kazoos and ukuleles. Even if you don't play, there's no one who can't sing or hum. People don't sing together enough these days. Why is that? Let's fix our nation's songlessness problem. Let's make noise in the library. What librarian would dare shush us? I'm of the opinion that it's not possible to be gloomy while swimming, eating ice cream or playing the ukulele.

-- Dan.