{"id":15255,"date":"2018-10-05T05:30:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T09:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15255"},"modified":"2018-09-20T09:11:56","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T13:11:56","slug":"jake-shimabukuro-plugged-and-unplugged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/05\/jake-shimabukuro-plugged-and-unplugged\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Shimabukuro, Plugged and Unplugged"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawaiian ukulele sensation Jake Shimabukuro catapulted to international fame in 2006 when a Youtube video of him performing the George Harrison-penned Beatles tune \u201cWhile My Guitar Gently Weeps\u201d went viral. By that time, Shimabukuro was already well-known in his native Hawaii and in Japan; by 2006 he had released six albums in the west plus one made specifically for the Japanese market.<\/p>\n

Since then, Shimabukuro has toured widely and released many more solo albums (13 to date in the U.S., and ten Japan-only releases). His 14th<\/sup> American release, The Greatest Day<\/i>, was released August 31.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While The Greatest Day<\/i> will find Shimabukuro returning to his signature style of highly melodic, pop-leaning yet virtuosic ukulele playing, his restlessly creative nature has led him in some interesting musical directions. For 2016\u2019s The Nashville Sessions<\/i> he continued his exploration with amplification and looping effects (begun on 2012\u2019s Alan Parsons-produced Grand Ukulele<\/i>), and fronting a power trio. The results sometimes sound a bit like Eric Clapton playing with Cream.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes things work, and sometimes they don\u2019t,\u201d says Shimabukuro. \u201cThere are things that I’ve recorded that at the time I thought were kind of cool, but now when I go back and listen, I\u2019m like, \u2018What was I thinking?\u2019\u201d While The Nashville Sessions<\/i> earned roundly positive critical response, fans of Shimabukuro\u2019s acoustic work were left a bit confused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always people who tell me, \u2018I just love when you play solo with just the natural-sounding ukulele,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut there are people who like the fuller sound with the bass and the drums. I love both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Happily, thanks both to his versatility and his large body of work, onstage Shimabukuro can exercise his creative muse in a number of ways. \u201cIn a live show you can cover a lot of ground,\u201d he says. \u201cIn our live shows, even though I have a trio with me, there’s still a section in the show where I just sit there and play a solo arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shimabukuro says he thrives on variety and challenges. \u201cI’d get bored if I were doing the same thing night after night,\u201d he says. These days when a melodic idea strikes him\u2014\u201cI could be walking around the mall,\u201d he says\u2014he captures it on his smartphone. Gone are the days when he carries his uke with him everywhere he goes. \u201cI used to,\u201d he admits. \u201cUntil I had kids, that thing was always at my side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hawaiian ukulele sensation Jake Shimabukuro catapulted to international fame in 2006 when a Youtube video of him performing the George Harrison-penned Beatles tune \u201cWhile My Guitar Gently Weeps\u201d went viral. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,40,41,49,51],"tags":[2920],"class_list":["post-15255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-instrumental","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-jake-shimabukuro","cat-30-id","cat-40-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15257,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15255\/revisions\/15257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}