Heartstrings: The Story of the Kamaka Ukulele

It's on PBS World Tomorrow.

Has anyone seen this yet? I'll be recording it.

http://www.pbs.org/heartstrings/

it's on in less than an hour. (11:00 AM EST)

Arrrggghhh! Way too short!

Really good though.

If you're on Oahu, you gotta check out their factory. They have free tours there, i think only on certain days though. You can see how their made, and they give you a catalog and a koa pog / punchout thing - the little wood disc that is removed to make the sound hole in the uke with their logo on it. The coolest thing there is all of the old Kamaka ukes they have there, including one of the early pineapple shape with the original pineapple hand painting!

PBS is feeding this program out to stations again in April for use in May 2010 during Asian American/Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. As always with PBS, check local listings - you can find your local schedule at PBS.org.

I have two Kamakas and they have a beautiful sound. My concert was placed in my hands by Fred Kamaka some years back when he came here to Indiana. (I promptly put it back into his hands and asked him to play a tune for me, he did, but just a little.) I had contacted him months before, and asked him to choose a concert uke for me. Nice guy.

I'm going to Hawai'i next month, but not planning on getting to Oahu.