We had an action-packed meeting last Thursday! Close to 50 strummers, eight sing-along tunes (three of them brand new to the group), and so many great solo performances. Many thanks to Jack, Bill and Kathy, Bailey and Weston, Ray, Kendra, and Gary for sharing your talents with us during the open mic part of the program. The breadth of musical styles and the display of skills was an inspiration.

A special Austin Ukulele Society welcome to the many first-timers who joined us — we hope you’ll come back and play with us again!

Walter will be posting a summary of the meeting and a few pics (thanks Jen!) on our blog soon, as well as the Tin Pan Alley Medley in the presentation format we worked through on Thursday. Give it a try — we’ll be playing it again at a future meeting!

Mark your calendars: our next meeting will be held on Thursday, September 13, 7:00 – 8:30pm. We’ll be sending information soon, so keep an eye out.

I say this after every meeting, but it’s true: it’s such a pleasure to play with you all. Can’t wait until we meet again!

Cheers, Bob G.

[Well, folks, I wasn’t there–the first AUS meeting I’ve missed! But I will see you in September. So I’m posting Bob’s message. Looks as if you folks who were there had a lot of fun. Between now & then, look for September’s song. —Walter]

PS: Here’s one more thing–we have now posted for everyone’s delectation the Tin Pan Alley Medley – Presentation Format that Bob shared during the August meeting. It’s now here and in the Ukulele Music Library.

Here’s our song for our August 9 meeting (well, actually five songs). It’s a medley of Tin Pan Alley favorites from 1926 to 1931 that folks have played on the uke for more than 70 years: “All of Me,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” “My Blue Heaven,” “Five Foot Two,” and “Please Don’t Talk about Me When I’m Gone.” All of them feature the chords C, E7, A7, D7 & G7. A couple of them we’ve played before, but we haven’t played them enough. So start strumming; here’s the Tin Pan Alley Medley No 1 .

This is a brief reminder that we’ll be meeting on the second Thursday of the month, August 9, as usual, from 7 – 8:30 p.m.

We’re still selecting the music for the next meeting, and we’ll be in touch several days before the meeting to share the chord chart(s), so that you can practice ahead of time. Watch for it.

Remember, we meet at Memorial United Methodist Church, at 6100 Berkman Drive (Austin, TX 78723) – it’s just southeast of where I-35 and US-290 connect.  Google will give you good directions from any part of town.

Enjoy the rest of July and we’ll be in touch in early August!

If you were at the July 12 AUS meeting, you know that Bob taught us a version of “Sway” that included a tabbed solo section. It’s great for those who are long-time pickers or those who are just easing themselves into picking their uke’s strings. It has now been added to the Ukulele Music Library as “Sway – Presentation Format.” —W

Our July 12 meeting was one of the best we’ve had yet. Around 40 ukers attended–it was one of those meetings where we had to carry many chairs out of the storage closet at the Memorial Church. Bob led the group in our new song-of-the-month, “Sway.” which sounded great. He taught us how to play a solo for the song, the tabs for which should appear in our Ukulele Music Library soon.

It was also great to see so many folks playing a solo number. We should give out our thanks to our performers: Ray, who played “Pancho and Lefty”; Woody, who performed “Alabama Jubilee” on his banjo uke; Jason, who did a great clawhammer solo, and Bill and Kathy, who sang “Suspicion,” one of their duets we’ve come to know so well.

Celeste played and sang the old Bill Withers/ Grover Washington hit “The Two of Us,” Elaine played a 4th of July salute to the theme songs of the Navy, Marines, Army, and the other services, and Walter (your faithful AUS blogger) performed the Big Joe Turner version of “Sweet Sue.”

We all had a great time, and want to encourage you to join our group of solo performers–there isn’t a friendlier audience anywhere!

If luck is with us, our next meeting will occur on Thursday, August 9, at 7 p.m. But who knows? Watch this space!  —Walter

Our July meeting is coming up on the second Thursday of the month – July 12th, at 7pm at Memorial United Methodist Church!

We’re all looking forward to playing a new-to-us tune on the ukulele–“Sway” (suggested by Bill – thanks!); please feel free to try out the song chart before the meeting. You can find all of the songs we play in the Ukulele Music Library of our blog, thanks to Walter, which, of course, is right here.

As usual, we’ll start out by sharing some ukulele-related news.  Then, we’ll play some songs from our repertoire. We’ll also have an ‘open mic’ section near the end of our meeting for those of you looking for a warm audience.

Reminder on meeting Location:
We’ll meet at Memorial United Methodist Church, at 6100 Berkman Drive (Austin, TX 78723) – it’s just southeast of where I-35 and US-290 connect.  Google will give you good directions from any part of town.

When you arrive, please pull into the ‘enter only’ parking lot on the north side of the church – you can park in any spot not designated for staff.  I would recommend parking just past the covered driveway near the front entrance of the church.  We’ll be strumming in a large classroom adjacent to the gym.  We’ll make sure a door is open till 7:15.  Please try to arrive by 7–if you arrive late, and run into difficulty getting in, please follow the sound of music till you find our practice room and knock on the window–we’ll let you in.

Reminder: If you’ve requested one or more of our awesome Austin Ukulele Society logo shirts, please bring $20 (per shirt) and we’ll get you squared away!

Have a happy and safe Independence Day!  See you in 10 days! —Jen

A big bunch of us were at the Hill Country Galleria Amphitheater in Bee Cave last Saturday, including a bunch of folks from San Antonio, to perform a Uke Mob in the middle of Patricia Vonne’s concert. So here they are, thanks to Trina Woodall and Lyda Guz– “Three Little Birds,” as Bob gathered us onstage:

here’s “Love Potion #9“:

Here’s “Margaritaville”:

and last but far from least, Then, here’s “Runaway” with a kazoo solo by yours truly:

Watch out for more performances & uke mobs, as they happen! –Walter

A record 55 people were strumming and singing on some really rockin’ tunes on Thursday evening. As always, it’s such a pleasure to play with you all!

A round of applause for Jack, Kendra, James, Tim and George for playing solo tunes for the group — great job! A very warm ukulele welcome to the first-timers who joined us; we hope to see you again soon! And a special shout-out to our friends from San Antonio who drove up to play with us; thanks to Kathy C. for making that happen. We’ll have to plan a trip to join you at one of your meetings!

A few folks were disappointed we didn’t get to play “Sway” and I’m so sorry about that. It was important that we go over the songs for out upcoming performance on June 23rd and we simply ran out of time. So much music, so little time! We’ll save that jewel for another meeting.

A few upcoming ukulele events:

*** Bill ‘Monster’ Jones and Kathy Murray will be performing as their acoustic duo Cherrywood Road tomorrow, Saturday June 16th, at Mangia Pizza on Lake Austin Blvd. from 8:00-10:00pm. If you haven’t seen them perform, you owe it to yourself to check them out!

*** Saturday night, June 23, is the Austin Ukulele Society’s Uke Mob at the Hill Country Galleria. This is shaping up to be a fun-filled event — we expect 40 or more participants! (We’re no longer accepting additional participants.)

*** The June edition of Sweetpea’s Ukulele Night at Skinny’s Ballroom will be Thursday, June 28, 7:00 – 9:00pm. This will be a “Wizard of Oz Event.” Check for details on Sweetpea’s Ukulele Workshop page on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ukulele-Workshop-Skinnys-Ballroom/232825920074803. Skinny’s is located at 115 San Jacinto.

*** Mark your calendars: the Austin Ukulele Society’s next meeting will be held on Thursday, July 12, 7:00 – 8:30pm. We’ll meet at the Memorial United Methodist Church, 6100 Berkman Drive. Hope to see you all there!

Cheers!

Bob G.