DESCRIPTION:
http://bartt.net Portugal's Madeira Island is the birthplace of the ukulele, and this movie was filmed there.
*** Bartt plays authentic Portuguese instruments: the braguinha is the steel-stringed predecessor of the ukulele, and the cavaquinho is a Brazilian relative. In keeping with the actual history and evolution of the ukulele, Bartt plays a braguinha in the first part of the song, blends in a cavaquinho towards the middle, and plays the final verse on an ukulele that was hand-built by Tomas Delgado, of the renowned family that Andres Segovia called the "finest luthiers in the world."

Learn ukulele with Bartt's instructional DVDs, e-books, and music CDs. It's all at Bartt.net right now!

Long Live the Ukulele
Copyright 2007 Bartt Warburton/Warburtunes Music

Long, long ago, in Madeira, Portugal,
Manuel Nunes carved a braguinha
How could he know what it would say to me?
But, like Gepetto, he turned the wood into Pinocchio

With its tiny, fretted neck, he watched it slowly take its shape
Then he gave it to a sailor of the Ravenscrag
Bound for Honolulu, crossed the oceans through the nights,
and through the days
(and he was singing as he played...)

Long live the ukulele, play it if you can
And long live the ukulele man
Long live the ukulele, made it with his hands,
with his hands, with his own two hands

After far too long at sea, they disembarked,
and the first one on the shore was a sailor named Fernandez
With his braguinha in his hand, he celebrated this new land,
and they danced, how they danced, on the sand

Nimble sailors' fingers crossed its neck, brought forth a tune,
Like the jumping fleas that gave it its new name

Long live the ukulele, play it if you can
And long live the ukulele man
Long live the ukulele, made it with his hands,
with his hands, with his own two hands
With his hands, with his own two hands