ATTENTION!
The Duke's latest album- 'GOLD'- is NOW AVAILABLE at Parasolrecords.com!
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One summer evening I was strolling by a cafe and happened across two old-timers playing classic tunes from the 1920's on guitar and mandolin. I sat beneath the outdoor Christmas lights as ditty after golden ditty filled the air: 'How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen Pairee, 'Singin' in the Bathtub. 'It's a Sin to Tell a Lie.
I miss those old ballads, syrupy love songs and romping rags.The next day I was strolling around playing with my Game Boy just as I passed a pawnshop. Some strange impulse made me wander in, and I caught sight of a ukulele hanging amongst the old swords and rusted tubas on the wall. "Hey- how much do you buy these for?" I asked the shop owner, waving my Game Boy at him. "Oooohhh- twenty bucks." "And how much is that ukulele?" "Twenty bucks."
What were the odds? Clearly the universe wanted me to have that ukulele.
So I made the exchange; he took my electronic coma-inducer and returned with the ukulele in a small brown box like a little paper coffin. I don't know how long the uke had hung in that shadowy shop, years perhaps, but I led it out into the sunshine and tossed its coffin in the trash. A jazz musician once said that all you need to survive on the road is your horn and a picture of Louis Armstrong- so I placed Satchmo's picture in the belly of my uke and dubbed the instrument 'Little Louie'.
