ODAS - Liner Notes

1. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
(Fields) A classic tune by Dorothy Fields.  This is a special extended version (can we say extra verse?).  

2. It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie
(Mayhew) There are many famous versions of this tune sung as a slow ballad.  I liked Fats Waller’s version best and my version here is inspired by that.  I also add my own modern take on the lyric at the end.  A classic Mayhew tune.

3. Sweet Sue, Just You
(Harris/Young) A classic tune.  I remember working on this on the beach of Santa Cruz at a ukulele festival many moons ago.  Arrangement is by Joel Eckhaus (I think!).

4. Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding
(Winchester) A doo-wop song with a real story to it.  I had fun learning this and even more fun figuring out how to play it.  It was fun to work on a song about the summer amid the snowiest winter in Boston history.

5. Baby I’m Blue
(Joe Newberry).  A dear friend wrote this one.  I love it, hope you do as well.  This track has me on baritone and concert ukes.  

6. Some of These Days
(Tucker) Sophie Tucker’s autobiography has the same title.  Love the tune, playing a variation of a Smeck arrangement.  Got the idea to sing “blue eyed baby” at the end while watching a rerun of The Lucy Show on which Jack Benny was a guest.

7. Little Boy I’m So Blue (Without You)
(Wood) You’ve never heard of this song.  The original sings “Little Girl” and was sung by the Rice Brothers Gang in 1941.  

8. When You See (Those Flying Saucers)
(Coben/Grean)  I first heard this tune riding in a car in rural South Carolina.  I was dozing in the back and heard “flying saucers” and thought, “WHAT?  Did I hear that right?”  I was on a quest to find it since.  Best gospel tune i know.  (Perhaps I should learn some new ones, ehh?)

9. Shuffle Out of Buffalo
(Manke Parody) Ukulele Eck suggested that it be written.  I was happy to oblige.  This parody was written in November of 2014 when, as it happens, Buffalo was getting pummeled with feet of snow.

10. Anybody Seen My Mom?
(Manke Parody)  I was sitting and watching the community stage of the first Midwest Uke Fest in Indianapolis about ten years ago.  This fest was organized by a group at a magnet school, the Key Learning Center.  The school had its own kids ukulele band called the Key Strummers.  Well, the kids were up there playing “Five Foot Two, eyes of blue….has anybody seen my gal?”  A friend leaned over and said that he thought the kids should be singing, “Has anybody seen my mom?” and thus, a parody was born.