MANDOLELE - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Twenty-five years ago I made the Big Island of Hawaii my second home (Holualoa, Kona side - Santa Barbara was my 1st) and it changed my musical life. I've been playing mandolin with the CACHE VALLEY DRIFTERS (CVD) since 1973 (see "friends" below), but IN 1980 Hawaiian music REALLY captured my heart. To make a long story short, I spent a couple of years experimenting and by 1983 started building and playing the nylon-string mandolin - Mandolele (Registered Trade Mark). It's not an ukulele tuned like a mandolin - nor is it a conventional mandolin strung with nylon strings. Bridges pop off the first, no tone out of the second (I tried both!). I started building Mandoleles in the early 1980s and the design has come a long way - it's now (IMHO) a perfect hybrid of the two - tone of the Ukulele with the size, feel, scale and power of an F5 mandolin - tuned GDAE - E being a 5th above an ukulele A. The opening cut on this page is the solo I played on RISING OF THE MOON by KATE WOLF. The song was originally recorded in 1986 for her album POET'S HEART but was replaced on that project (still unfinished) by another song. After her passing in December that same year, I was asked by Tom Diamant and Jeff Alexson at Kaleidoscope Records to complete the track for a retrospective CD, THE WIND BLOWS WILD (now on Rhino Records, released 1987). The Mandolele seemed like the natural choice for the solo - and here it is. I've also included selections from THE BUBS - LIFE IN MONTECITO recorded live at the Santa Fe Bar & Grill in Montecito near Santa Barbara, CA in 1985. I'm joined here by my buds Pat McGrath on guitar and lead vocal, Tom Lee on upright bass and Jody Eulitz on cardboard box (Jack Daniels) - collectively known back in the day as THE BUBS. It's been a long road to where I am now - Kaneohe on the island of Oahu, Hawaii - where I work as a luthier for one of Hawaii's premier ukulele builders, Kanile'a Ukulele Company. (http://www.kanileaukulele.com) The Mandolele is planned for production in 2008 (as well as a tenor ukulele version) and more info will be available soon. For more sounds of the Mandolele, visit THE BUBS in the Friends section below. You can contact me via [email protected] . Mahalo nui loa for checking out my page - Aloha.

My Interests

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