Janet Klein, Ukulele Chanteuse & Style Icon

I suppose when I said I was going to write about 'what' influenced me to take up the ukulele I really ought to have said 'who'. First, we have to go back in time just a few months to when the Adelaide Cabaret Festival was on. It was the first year I made an effort to go see some of the shows that were put on and one act, in particular, stole my heart: Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys. Janet Klein is simply marvellous! ("Much too marvellous for words...")


And she's a lovely person, to boot - I bought a CD and got her to sign it for me after the show and she told me I looked nice or lovely or something like that and she and the bass player both said if I was ever in LA I should go to the Cicada Club. That’s all entirely irrelevant, really, but I suppose it just added to my impression of how wonderful she is.

Could she be any cuter?

So, after the fantastic show and lovely meeting I decided I wanted to be like her - who wouldn't? She's lovely and adorable (has great style, I should add) and keeps these amazing old songs (that would most likely never get the same kind of audience) alive.

Now, I love a lot of music that either has ukulele in it or is performed solely on ukulele but I would definitely say it was my wish to be a ‘ukulele chanteuse’ like Janet Klein that more or less convinced me to finally give it a bash! (She doesn't always play ukulele herself or for every song)

And here's a video of her actually playing the ukulele...

I shall attempt this one day but only when I’m confident enough to tackle a song with 7 chords…plus, I don't have a capo and I would have to tune my ukulele differently. It's not a lot of effort, I know...I do have a Hohner Melodica that my dad gave me a while ago that I can use to tune it (but I've been using one of the websites I've found to tune it, so far). But I shall wait until I buy a capo.


You can listen to some songs on myspace, too, and there are a few live videos floating around youtube.

So that, more or less, is what inspired me to take up the ukulele!

Love,
Andi
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