Thursday, July 14, 2016

Richard Marx - Whatever We Started (Acoustic) Ukulele Version

Richard Marx has been one of my favorite singer/songwriters and personalities since high school. I have every album. His first is still my favorite, but his new one "Beautiful Goodbye" is one of his best in years. It's a great album to "chill" to and has a different feel to all his others. More electronic and sexy. Usually when artists try and switch up their sound and make it more "modern" I don't like it, but he pulled it off, and still sticks to his classic singer/songwriter style material as the glue that holds the new modern sound together. "Whatever We Started" is definitely my favorite song off the album, and "Suddenly" is my second favorite.



Hope you guys enjoy this acoustic ukulele version I threw together. I learned the chords a while back, then felt inspired late at night to pop on my camera and lay it down.



Friday, July 8, 2016

Pretty Chinese Ukulele Girl Sasa Sings "Take Me Home Country Roads" w/David D...

I met Chinese ukulele internet sensation 小sa神 - Sasa at a "mala tang (dry hot pot)" restaurant in Shanghai. We'd been following each other on Instagram for about a year. She always seemed very positive and cute in her posts, but when I met her in person I realized there was much more to her success than meets the eye. Sasa is extremely creative and entrepreneurial. She designed and sells the t-shirts we're wearing in this video on TaoBao the Chinese equivalent of Amazon. Sasa also came up with the idea of selling her ukuleles there and through her fanbase on the Chinese video app MeiPai she now sells thousands of ukuleles and t-shirts every year and has made enough money to pay for her own college tuition and master's degree (in accounting) that she will begin next year. Once I knew these facts the next "peace sign" selfie I saw her take carried a slightly different meaning.