Swingin' Ukulele Safari

After Bosko and Honey's visit to Taunton I felt inspired to make a ukulele and melodica version of Bert Kaempfert's 'Swinging Safari'.

The recording features my first attempt at playing upright bass, which is great fun. I used a number of ukuleles including, a regal baritone, a no name baritone, a Martin style 0, a Kepasa Hollywood Concert, a National Steel and a John Grey Banjo Uke.

After making the song the Little Nippers and I decided to make a video to accompany the song. In it I play Nipper and the Little Nippers play Bosko and Honey. The whole thing was filmed by Moogly Moo. We have sent it to Bosko and Honey to say thank you for their visit to Taunton.

To download a high quality stereo mp3 of 'Swingin' Ukulele Safari' Click here,
Download 'Swingin Ukulele Safari'
(Right Click and Save as...)

Here is the video we made...

BSY
Nipper

A Murderous Ellipse

Craig Robertson, song writer extraordinare, regularly posts demos of new songs he has just written. One which really caught my ear was 'Nicotine', so much so that I played it for Mrs Nipper. Those of you who know the great Mrs N. will be aware that she has an acute ear for any sort of ambiguity and found a great one in the song. Craig when singing about finding his deseased father's lighter sings;

"........I found it when he died in his front desk drawer"

Well this got the brain cells working and Mrs Nipper came up with a song lyric in response, I tweaked it and added a Craig Robertson style melody. I then recorded a demo featuring voice, Eckhaus 1K soprano Ukulele, bass, melodica and slide guitar. It's a little rough around the edges but it seems to work.

I sent the song to Craig and he was tickled by the "goofy, murderous ellipse", so here are both songs for your enjoyment.

Click here to listen to 'Nicotine' by Craig Robertson

Click here to listen to 'Poor Pa' by Nipper and Moogly Moo

My apologies to anyone with a father who is only 4 inchs tall and has recently had a fatal accident with a piece of office equipment.

BSY
Nipper

The Acme 'Midget Stapler'1937

Recording Session

Sunday evening saw brother Jon paying my studio a visit. He was there to record tracks for my ukulele CD for children. With the deadline looming I knew a visit from Jon would bring some of his musical magic to the project. He is a super-talented musician and has lent his keyboard skills to the 'Ukulele Revolution' song and will feature on one of Craig Robertson's forthcoming CDs. We of course helped the whole thing along with a few glasses of 'Old Speckled Hen'.

For recording I use a PC running Cubasesx, a couple of good mics and a small valve preamp. The rest is in having good quality instruments and playing them as well as I can. It also helps to have my brother to come in and play so marvelously.

On a previous session Jon played piano for a version of 'Moonglow', I sang and played ukulele.

You can download and listen to the mp3 of 'Moonglow' by clicking here.

BSY
Nipper