After our unintended summer break in July, everyone in attendance was raring to go. Welcome back to Karen and Bounce from Florida, Scott and Sam, and welcome to our newbies Chuck and Deborah. Betty, Frank, David, Sally, Larry, Dawn, Arlene, Dan, Irene, Bill, Anne, PJ, Ken, and WendySue were all there.

Here's what we played:

1). SIDE BY SIDE- Our opening theme and there are still questions about an agreed upon ending.

2). ME & BOBBY MCGEE by Kris Kristofferson (Ken) - Wow! What a perfect way to start off the night. We all played together and it really sounded great especially with Sam playing the bass. Ken said it sounded like P!nk or Janis Joplin was in the room with us. It was that good. All our practice during the month of July clearly paid off.

3). CECELIA by Simon & Garfunkel - PJ lead us off and it was nice and easy to play with uke friendly chords such as [C], [F] & [G7]. It sounded good, but I heard someone say if we were drunk it would've sounded much better.

4). GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY (Betty) - This is the song that Litte Richard screams. WendySue started us off but we gave up pretty quickly on this one.

5). HELLO DOLLY (Betty) - Nice job! Karen thought it was a little too fast, but I thought it was an upbeat, happy song. Great work on the chord sheet, Arlene!

6). MAME (Betty) -This song is from the Broadway show. It sounded ok.

7). BO DIDDLEY (Betty) - This song was named after Bo Diddley himself and it uses the Bo Diddley strum which Ken demonstrated. This strum was not easy and it is also used in the song "I Want Candy" and "Faith" by George Michael.

8). DONNA, DONNA, THE PRIMADONNA by Dion & the Belmonts, (WendySue) - This song sounded really nice with the bass. WendySue sang this well.

9). SHERRY by The Four Seasons, 1962, (WendySue) - We had some really high voices Frankie Valli style combined with some really low voices. Sounded great!

10). WENDYSUE - Bill wrote this really cute song for our lovely WendySue using the melody from Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue. It was terrific and as Bill jokingly said when questioned about his admiration for WendySue, "whatever happens in the Plainview Library, stays there."

11). JOLENE by Dolly Parton (Irene) - Everyone loves this song and it gave me goosebumps. Karen said there's a great version of this by Pentatonix and another version by Miley Cyrus singing a duet with Dolly.

12). MAGGIE MAY by Rod Stewart (Irene) - This song is really a mandolin tune, but we were delighted to hear a solo played by David during the instrumental part.

13). SWEET CAROLINE by Neil Diamond (Irene) - Great job! Fun song to play.

14). BAD BAD LEROY BROWN by Jim Croce (Arlene) - Excellent! Arlene let us through this one and it was fun to sing and play.

15). RUNAROUND SUE by Dion (Arlene) - Very Good! Nice work group! Gold star.

16). SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND by The Beatles (Arlene) - There was a surprise line in the song that said, "that the ukes are gonna sing a song." Once we got started we were on a roll.

17). WELCOME BACK (KOTTER) by John Sebastian, 1976 (Dan) - Ken played and sang this song well. A club favorite!

18). HELLO MARY LOU - Great upbeat uke song! Good energy and all our practice was showing.

19). BRANDY (You’re a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass, 1972 (Bill) - Pretty song. We all sang and played together beautifully.

20). CENTERFIELD by John Fogerty - This song mentions Joe DiMaggio along with other baseball greats. There was clapping and a lot of enthusiasm coming from our Florida friends. Karen says they play it all the time especially in the Green Parrot where I'm told no Jimmy Buffet songs are allowed.

21). DANIEL by Elton John (Irene) - What a pretty song by Sir Elton. I still haven't seen "Rocketman", but I intend to.

22). HEY THERE DELILAH by Plain White T's (Bounce) - Karen sang this song well. Not everyone was familiar with it.

23). EVIL WAYS by Santana, 1970 (Dan) - Great beat once Dan got us started. "You hang around, baby, with Jeanne and Joan and a-who knows who." Nice pick, Dan!

24). CHARLIE BROWN by the Coasters (Jen) - I haven't heard this song in a really long time. It was fun to play and sing the line, "Why is everbody always picking on me?"

Most of the songs we played on this night came out really well. It was a successful jam and I hope are next jam is just as fun. Our next theme suggested by Bill is songs with "Maybe" or "Baby" in the title or lyrics.

On Saturday, Ken and I went to the Patchogue uke jam, and afterwards we stopped in the Family Melody music store, which is walking distance from the library. We checked out their collection of ukes and I saw a cute poster for Kala ukes that said:

Hawaiian definition of the word KALA (pronounced Kah' la):

1. v. To free, loosen, unburden, absolve. To forgive, a prayer to free someone from any evil influence.

2. Dollar, silver, money, cash currency.

3. n. Surgeonfish, Unicorn fish

4. a wonderful (Ono) brand Ukulele!

Just thought I'd share. Keep on uke'n and see you in two weeks (August 16)!

-- Jen.