Sunday, June 28, 2009

Plums and ukeleles




I'm probably the last British person alive who hasn't come across The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain before. Catalyst out in Arizona drew my attention to them with a video of their wonderful rendition of the them from 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' over at his, and I ended up spending too long on Youtube watching more of them. As it was, I found it hard to choose between this one ( Streisand's tear-jerking 'You Dont' Bring me Flowers' as you've never heard it before) and their wonderful modern jazz version of Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' . On their website(link above), they describe how '... the Orchestra takes us on “a world tour with only hand luggage” and gives the listener “One Plucking Thing After Another”. '

Withal, their one of the most amazing and amusing things I've seen for a while; they range between deliciously funny, oddly touching and very melodious. Have a closer look, you won't be disappointed!

~~~

I finally finished another Inktense painting, was rather taken with purples, blues and greens, so plums seemed the thing to do...

9 comments:

Zhoen said...

Purple is the best color.

I've only recently found the Uke folks, but then, I'm not a Brit.

Roderick Robinson said...

No, I'm the last person to discover this phenomenon. Given the ukelele's unfortunate provenance ("When I'm cleaning windows to earn an honest bob/For a nosy parker it's an interesting job...") who could ever imagine it might be used wittily. What next? Sex and the euphonium? But I'm going to drive myself mad trying to find out whether the plucked notes were fingered (I think not) by the acolytes.

The Crow said...

A wonderful post, Lucy! Loved the Uke Group, and your painting is magnificent. Those plums look so juicy, I can almost taste them, feel the weight of them in my hand. There should be some good ones in the groceries and fruitstands soon.

:)

Catalyst said...

Oh, that was wonderful. I hadn't looked at other videos of the group. And that plum painting is just plumb delicious!

andy said...

Lucy, Barrett, you're both wrong!I'm the last person to come across the Ukele orchestra! And very glad too to have my consciousness expanded in their direction. I give my vote to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme - for which the humble uke turns out to be unexpectedly appropriate. Thanks for the link.

jzr said...

I love purples and greens together. Magic to the eyes!!

Crafty Green Poet said...

gorgeous plums. There's a ukelele open mike night in Edinburgh nowadays...

Lucy said...

Thank you.

Z - but then you are a uke player, I believe?

BB - Yes, it is perhaps the apotheosis of George Formby's cultural legacy. They actually do a rather forceful and impressive version of 'Leaning on a Lampost' too. I assumed the acolytes fingered the chords so the singers could strum them.

Crow - thank you. Having scanned it I can now see it is unfinished in the bottom right corner.

Cat - thanks, dear, and thanks for finding them. I only really hit the View on Youtube button by accident at yours, but then got engrossed!

Andy - yes, I think I almost prefer that to the original!

JZR - yes, me too!

CGP - really? They seem to be undergoing a renaissance! The UOGB are trying to get as many people learning as possible, and then to have a massed uke rendition of the 'Ode to Joy' at the Albert Hall.

Dick said...

Fabulous clip, wonderful plums!