RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/
Life on four strings: Jake Shimabukuro comes to Rancho Cucamonga
By VANESSA FRANKO
The Press-Enterprise
From the time he was a toddler, Jake Shimabukuro remembers his mother playing the ukulele. He was captivated.
"I wanted to learn how to make that sound," he said in a recent telephone interview.
What started out as a hobby, with gigs in coffee shops, has turned Shimabukuro into one of the world's most prominent ukulele artists, playing with Ziggy Marley, Bela Fleck and Jimmy Buffett. He will perform Saturday at the Lewis Family Playhouse at the Victoria Gardens Cultural Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Shimabukuro released a live album this year, and the stage is where he shines.
"I love the fact that I can express exactly how I feel to strangers," he said.
For the live album, he recorded every show on the tour, because he knew he would be too aware in the beginning. He wanted to treat himself like the subject of a National Geographic documentary, to the point where he would forget that he was being taped.
In addition to his original music, one of the cuts on the live disc is his rendition of "Thriller," the tune Michael Jackson made famous.
"Michael Jackson was one of my heroes," he said.
Another favorite to play is the Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
When he does a cover song, he tries to stay true to the melody.
"You're never going to make it better," he said. "It's more about enjoying and celebrating the song. ... It's like a story that you heard from someone, or a joke, and you want to share it."
Shimabukuro has been working on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" for this tour. He said the song has been fun to play live. Since everyone knows the song, he said, he can tell that fans in the audience are waiting for their favorite moments, to see how he will pull them off.
"It's such a challenging piece," he said. "It had my brain tied up in knots."
