I arrived much later than usual because of heavy traffic and was surprised to find most of the seats occupied on this eve of a holiday weekend. Present tonight were PJ, Anne, Wendy Sue, Patricia, Rochelle, Eric (1st time) Frank and Betty (second time), Ken, Jen, Bill, Vin, Ting, and Suzanne and John also for a second time. Missing were Dan, Louise, Jack and Larry who went to the Ashokan Ukefest.

Ken spent some time giving a tutorial on our website for the benefit of the newbies and then we jumped right into the songs starting with UNDER THE BOARDWALK (Betty). We were excellent right out of the box. Even though tacit notations were missing from this chord sheet we all knew when to pause and we ended together. A wonderful no stress standard that everyone is familiar with. We sounded great. Add to the play list.

Anne submitted Jimmy Buffett’s MARGARITAVILLE (our original theme for this meeting was Buffet & the Beach) and again easy peasy. We did well.

BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA (Anne) is a 1914 tune which has appeared in several movies and TV shows such as Some Like It Hot, I Love Lucy, The Haunted Mansion, Mitch Miller, and The Waltons. This Dr. Uke chord sheet uses one of my favorite chords [C#dim], it just makes my ears happy.

PEARLY SHELLS (Me) (Pupu A ʻO ʻEwa) is an old Hawaiian song. Covered by many but most notably by Don Ho and Burl Ives. Pretty song.

LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND (me) is a Pat Boone classic. At the end I said “hot dog we did that great!” Put it on the play list.

HARBOR LIGHTS (me) First released in 1937 by radio’s ‘Golden Age’ singer Frances Langford. It has since been covered by many of the classic performers such as Guy Lombardo, Sammy Kaye, Bing Crosby, Rudy Valle, Willie Nelson and many more.

SEA CRUISE (me) A 1959 top 20 hit recorded by Frankie Ford. Covered by many including, ahem, Jimmy Buffett. A nice boogie woogie when played well. My notes indicated a “good effort.” Enough said.

Bill gave us a BEACH BOYS MEDLEY. Some parts we knew and played well and others.... well, we tried. But we all chuckled by the unexpected ukulele lyric hidden near the end.

Vin gave us JAMAICA FAREWELL it was nice but we all agreed the Am chord near the beginning of the chorus did not sound great. Many of us didn’t even play and just went on the Dm as a natural flow. We played it a second time using Bill’s chord sheet (he makes them like a pro) and it sounded good. Another for a play list.

SLOOP JOHN B (Vin) a Beach Boy’s hit, was nice and easy.

The Beach Boys had a hit GOD ONLY KNOWS (Jen) in 1966 which was a departure from their usual style and instrumentation. They employed accordions, sleigh bells, French horns, a harpsichord as well as violas and cellos. From Wikipedia “Brian Wilson has said that he wrote the song as an attempt to match the standard of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album, which was released in December 1965. In his recollection, he was under the influence of marijuana and was "so blown away" with the album that he sat at his piano and began writing the song.” As interesting and lovely this song really is, “we bombed” to quote Jen.

With time to spare and out of songs we dived into our archives and found a few others to try:

Suzanne wanted to do BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA which I entered for our Beatles Jam. Too challenging for my ability but I played what I could and with Ken and Suzanne carrying the weight. It was fun to do.

UKULELE LADY is a good uke classic that was fun to do.

We used Bill’s chord sheet for I’M INTO SOMETHING GOOD and we sounded great.

If you own a uke and you don’t play TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS at least once well, I feel bad for you. It’s a fun number and always makes people of a certain age laugh because we can all recall Tiny Tim and his silliness.

I also have RHYTHM OF THE RAIN in my notes as the last entry. It’s an easy one so we must have sounded good.

Another fun night came to an end and if everyone shows up next time we are going to need a room expander. Our next theme will be SUMMER.

Until then – you keep on strumming,

-- Arlene.