Vintage Ukulele

Roy Smeck was one of the truly great musicians of the 20th century. Born on February 6th 1900, he had a long and interesting career as a multi instrumentalist and teacher right up until the time of his death in New York City on April 5th, 1994.

Early on he became a master of the guitar, banjo, harmonica and steel guitar - but was especially well known for his skill on the ukulele which earned him the nickname of "Wizard of the Strings."

Throughout his career he produced over 500 recordings and wrote numerous instructional books and musical arrangements. He also appeared in several movies - including some experimental ones during the silent film era where a record player running his recordings were synchronized to the film.

Roy Smeck was especially popular for his entertaining 'novelty-act' approach to his musical performances. He would pluck the ukulele strings with his teeth, play it behind his back, blow across the sound hole, switch instruments mid-tune, dance and tap .. all with amazing skill.

You can see a few of his tricks on this old movie clip:

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under Ukuleles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.