Ukulele lovers are in for a great treat this weekend.
The Canmore Folk Music Festival will present James Hill, a ukulele master from Langley, B.C., Saturday (July 30).
This will be Hill’s first time performing in Canmore, but he’s looking forward to the experience.
“Ukulele’s getting to be the next big thing,” he said. “It’s an incredibly easy instrument to play and a very difficult instrument to play well.
“It’s catching on around the world because people are getting back to playing their own music – which I welcome, I think it’s a great development in music. We’re surrounded by so much technology and gadgetry these days, but the ukulele somehow cuts through a lot of the noise of the modern world and it’s accessible to people.”
Hill was first introduced to the ukulele at an early age.
“At the school I went to, that was the instrument of choice for the music class,” he said. “Since the ‘60s, a lot of teachers have been using it to teach music curriculum, so I was lucky enough to be at one of these schools where you had no choice. You had to play ukulele.
“In a way, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
At the age of 18, Hill decided to make a career out of playing the ukulele.
“At that time I’d been travelling a lot with the Langley Ukulele Ensemble, and we had a lot of great experiences on the road,” he said. “That gave me a taste of the professional world in terms of recording, booking, schedule, rehearsal, all that stuff, and it was just a natural growth.”
Ten years later, the ukulele is still paying the bills and keeping him happy, he said.
“These days I’m playing all around the world,” he said. “They say music is a universal language; ukulele seems to be getting to that stage as well.
“You just never know where this instrument is going to catch on next, so my travels have taken me far and wide. I’d like to think with another instrument, like fiddle or guitar, I would have had equal opportunities, but I’m not so sure – I think the ukulele has opened doors that would have otherwise been shut.”
Accompanying Hill will be his partner, Anne Davison, an accomplished cellist.
“So it’ll be cello and ukulele and vocals,” said Hill. “Surprisingly, they go together well, they compliment each other well.”
Over the course of his career, Hill has released four albums. His fifth, Man With A Love Song, is coming in September.
“We’ll be playing some from that,” he said. “I’m well aware that there are already a lot of love songs out there, but I still felt there were a bunch of things to say about it.
“If we ever get tired of love songs, I think that’ll mean we’ve gotten tired of love, and I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”
Over the years, the biggest challenge Hill has faced is overcoming the stereotype that the ukulele is not a serious instrument.
“When I started out recording and releasing albums, basically the subtext to everything that I was doing was ‘I bet you didn’t know we could do this on a ukulele’,” he explained. “It was much more focused on convincing people of the value of the ukulele and these days, now that the ukulele is becoming much more accepted, it’s taken the pressure off me to be a ukulele evangelist and I can just be a musician and writer again.”
To get a taste of Hill’s music, visit his website at www.ukulelejames.com
