George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele

George Har­ri­son loved the ukulele, and real­ly, what’s not to love? For its dain­ty size, the uke can make a pow­er­ful­ly cheer­ful sound, and it’s an instru­ment both begin­ners and expert play­ers can learn and eas­i­ly car­ry around. As Harrison’s old friend Joe Brown remarked, “You can pick up a ukulele and any­body can learn to play a cou­ple of tunes in a day or even a few hours. And if you want to get good at it, there’s no end to what you can do.” Brown, once a star in his own right, met Har­ri­son and the Bea­t­les in 1962 and remem­bers being impressed with the fel­low uke-lover Harrison’s range of musi­cal tastes: “He loved music, not just rock and roll…. He’d go crack­ers, he’d phone me up and say ‘I’ve got this great record!’ and it would be Hoagy Carmichael and all this Hawai­ian stuff he used to like. George was not a musi­cal snob.”

“Crack­ers” may be the per­fect word for Harrison’s uke-phil­ia; he used it him­self in the adorable note above from 1999. “Every­one I know who is into the ukulele is ‘crack­ers,’” writes George, “you can’t play it and not laugh!” Har­ri­son remained upbeat, even dur­ing his first can­cer scare in 1997, the knife attack at his home in 1999, and the can­cer relapse that even­tu­al­ly took his life in 2001. The ukulele seemed a sweet­ly gen­uine expres­sion of his hope­ful atti­tude. And after Harrison’s death, it seemed to his friends the per­fect way to memo­ri­al­ize him. Joe Brown closed the Har­ri­son trib­ute con­cert at Roy­al Albert Hall with a uke ver­sion of “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” and Paul McCart­ney remem­bered his friend in 2009 by strum­ming “Some­thing” on a ukulele at New York’s Citi Field.

In his remarks, McCart­ney fond­ly rem­i­nisced: “When­ev­er you went round George’s house, after din­ner the ukule­les would come out and you’d inevitably find your­self singing all these old num­bers.” Just above, see Har­ri­son and an old-time acoustic jazz ensem­ble (includ­ing Jools Hol­land on piano) play one of those “old numbers”—“Between The Dev­il and Deep Blue Sea”—in 1988. The song even­tu­al­ly wound up on his last album, the posthu­mous­ly released Brain­washed. Just below, see Har­ri­son, McCart­ney, and Ringo Starr sing a casu­al­ly har­mo­nious ren­di­tion of the 1927 tune “Ain’t She Sweet” while loung­ing pic­nic-style in a park.

In Hawaii, where Har­ri­son owned a 150-acre retreat, and where he was known as Keo­ki, it’s said he bought ukule­les in batch­es and gave them away. The sto­ry may be leg­end, but it cer­tain­ly sounds in char­ac­ter. He was a gen­er­ous soul to the end. Just below, see Har­ri­son strum­ming and whistling away in a home video made short­ly before his death. You can hear the hoarse­ness in his voice from his throat can­cer, but you won’t hear much sad­ness there, I think.

And for good mea­sure:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Musi­cians Re-Imag­ine the Com­plete Song­book of the Bea­t­les on the Ukulele

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

George Harrison’s Mys­ti­cal, Fish­eye Self-Por­traits Tak­en in India (1966)

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”

Seri­ous­ly Awe­some Ukulele Cov­ers of “Sul­tans of Swing,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Thun­der­struck,” and “Smells Like Teen Spir­it”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness