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Ukulele Crimes
Joel Mabus

fossil 2618

LINER NOTES FROM ALBUM COVER

[click here to return to Ukulele Crimes CD page]

[click here to read extra notes published online here only]

I am a child of the 1960's. Music has always been my haven, and a salvation from a topsy-turvy world. With all the troubles we've seen lately, the uke has become my boon companion. When everything just seems to be coming unhinged - Nazi parades at college campuses, endless video feeds of slaughter and mayhem, non-stop fire storms out West and flood storms back East - the cheeky ukulele is my balm & refuge. The question becomes, "Is it a crime to play the ukulele when all the world is blue?" What you hold here is my answer.

I wrote six new numbers on the uke for this album, then went looking for some great vintage songs to cover - songs mostly new to me even if they were hits in grandfather's day. They offer some welcome notes of escape & romance, served up with a big dollop of mischief. Join me in some "dreamy scenes" with a wake-up morning bugle at the end. This project was, for me, a joy of creation- and discovery - in a particularly wearisome age. So cheers to you, and may all your crimes be misdemeanors!

Joel Mabus - January 2018

1 Ukulele Crimes 3:06
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

2 Ukulele Scrabble 2:28
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

3 Goats Can Eat Anything 2:29
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

4 Georgia Grind 2:30
Spencer Williams 1915 PD (Public Domain)

5 I'll See You In C-U-B-A 3:23
Irving Berlin 1920 PD

6 My Melancholy Baby 2:33
Ernie Burnett 1912 PD

7 Down Among The Sheltering Palms 3:38
James Brockman & Abe Olman 1914 PD

8 Way Down Yonder In New Orleans 2:46
Henry Creamer & Turner Layton 1922 PD

9 How Do You Spell Ukulele 4:47
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

10 The Reentrant - Waltz 3:15
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

11 Ukulele Schmukulele 4:04
Joel Mabus ©2018, Fingerboard Music

12 The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise 2:33
Gene Lockhart & Ernest Seitz 1919 PD

13 Bugle Call Rag 2:23
Pettis, Meyers & Schoebel 1922 PD

Produced and performed by
Joel Mabus for Fossil Records

Recorded, mixed and mastered
by Ian Gorman at La Luna Recording
in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Remembering my perspicacious friend Dave Van Ronk
who, when weary of lugging his guitar everywhere,
once told me, "If I could do it all on a ukulele, I would!"

Fossil Records #2618
(P) © 2018 Joel Mabus
All Rights Reserved

Fossil Records
PO Box 306
Portage MI 49081