Jake Shimabukuro

Driven by a new generation of aficionados, the ukulele rises again

“The ukulele is cool again,” declares John Schroeter, producer and author of Between the Strings: The Secret Lives of Guitars. Inspired by its simplicity and relatively low cost, amateurs and professionals alike have increasingly taken up the instrument in recent years.

Brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants in the 18th century, the ukulele remained off the mainland’s radar until the 1960s—and even then, Tin Pan Alley throwback Tiny Tim nudged it further into novelty territory. Over the next 30 years, uke-loving rockers like George Harrison, Pete Townshend, Eddie Vedder, Elvis Costello and the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt helped to gradually increase the instrument’s cachet.

Now young acts like Jake Shimabukuro and Brittni Paiva are leading a charge to introduce its charms to a new generation. “What I wanted to do was to show the diversity of the ukulele,” Paiva says of her latest album, Four Strings: The Fire Within. The word is spreading over social-networking sites like YouTube, where Shimabukuro can be found covering pop songs like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

“Think about what David Grisman has done for the mandolin, or what Béla Fleck has done for the banjo,” says Schroeter. “They took their respective instruments out of the traditional bluegrass milieu and launched them into jazz, blues, folk, classical and beyond. This is precisely what the new generation of ukulele players are bringing to their instrument.”