Meet the Yesterukes--Sue

From time to time we will be hearing from the members of the Yesterukes in their own words. Might be how they learned to play or an interesting experience they've had with the ukulele or with our band.

Here is the story Sue tells:

I learned to play a uke when I was about ten. My older sister brought hers home from college one weekend. Of course, I thought I could learn to play one too. Soon I had a uke of my own and was on the way to learning a few songs.

We used to entertain our Mom and Dad from the backseat of the car on long trips. (This was before our car had a radio.) We knew the usual easy sing-a-long songs of the day. We played and sang to our hearts content....until .....my Dad had finally had enough. He would slow down, turn around, and say quietly, " Let's give that a rest for awhile." And we would.

Just imagine--a car without radio. Now, kids watch movies in the back seat! Oh, how times have changed.

The Old Gray Mare

"The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be", the folk song says. Well, that is certainly true for the Yesterukes but in a good way. It has been almost three years since we started the band. If you are a regular reader, you've followed our progress as a group. But there have been many individual changes, too.

The person who said, "I'll come to practice only if you promise I won't EVER have to play in public" has been leading the group for several performances while the regular leader is absent for a while.

A gentleman who came to us as a fairly new player is now teaching a class, helping others learn to play ukulele.

Our rhythm player had never played any musical instrument before and now keeps a steady beat for the band on a multitude of rhythm instruments.

Our vocal soloist is taking drum lessons. Everyone in our group has a story.

So, yes..."we ain't what we used to be." We're better.


The Old Gray Mare, Traditional

Hello! Ma Baby

"The show must go on." We've all heard that. But yesterday it happened. The Yesterukes played a morning program at Calvary Baptist Church while the writer of this blog (who is in possession of the sound system and leads the band) was at the hospital meeting a first grandbaby. A quickly anointed new leader took over and the program went right on as scheduled--unplugged!

We had carefully planned our schedule around this event...we thought. But new baby came early. Guess no one told baby about the plan.

So today there are no photos of the Yesterukes. Just this beautiful baby. (The writer of this blog might be a little bit biased. And a little bit proud.)

Hello! Ma Baby, by Howard & Emerson, 1899

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Happy Together

Taking a break is essential for this ukulele band so that there is time for vacation, family and such but goodness, how good it is to be back together.

If you had watched the group gather, you might think we had taken the entire summer off instead of one month!

Everyone was so happy to see each other. It was hard to get everyone settled down to practice.

Today, though, the visiting was as important as the music. We needed time to reconnect and catch up on what had happened during the past month.

We did finally get to the music. And we sounded good---really good. Good to know we didn't forget everything. "It was the hours of practice we each did daily while we were off," someone cracked. That's likely an exaggeration, but time away certainly didn't hurt us. Thank goodness.

Happy Together, The Turtles, 1967

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Sunshine and Summertime

Our month off has flown by and it's time to dust off the ukuleles, find the music and get together again as a band. It's likely that our first practice back will be as much about visiting as about playing.

Our ukuleles traveled to the ocean, the mountains, the lake...and even helped celebrate the grand opening of a Tractor Supply Company. Now it's time to get back to business. Thanks to you, our readers, for letting us take a blog break, too.

Sunshine And Summertime, Faith Hill, 2006