Jake Shimabukuro Is The Ukulele’s Very Own Maestro
A talented and remarkable musician in his own right, Jake Shimabukuro arose to popularity through covering popular songs on YouTube. His most distinguished, a cover of The Beatles’ single “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, has accumulated over 16 million views since it was first published 12 years ago.
What attracted viewers to Shimabukuro’s rendition wasn’t his vocal ability or prior musical fame; it was the fact that he was playing the song on a ukulele.
Shimabukuro has reworked songs of varying genres to fit the conventions of the ukulele. Besides “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, he has performed ukulele variations of “Get Lucky”, “Hallelujah”, and even “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
No matter the difficulty of transitioning a song’s composition of a variety of instruments to simply one, especially a ukulele, Shimabukuro somehow finds a way to successfully do so.
His catalog isn’t limited to only covers, however. Shimabukuro has released 14 albums throughout his solo career, including last year’s The Greatest Day. His apparent talent and musical craft manifest that the ukulele isn’t a limited instrument if the one playing it is a master of his art.
Jake Shimabukuro will be performing at Songbirds North this Tuesday at 7 p.m. For tickets and more information, visit events.songbirds.rocks