Q&A with George Hinchliffe, spokesman and founder of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is playing at The Arts Centre on Thursday 8 March, bookings at www.artscentremelbourne.com.au
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is headlining this year’s Melbourne Ukulele Festival and is also touring nationally.
The Orchestra began in 1985 and is regarded as the oldest and best-known Uke band in the world.
The Orchestra’s received rave reviews internationally and we at MUF are thrilled to have them on board this year.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has eight members: Dave Suich, Peter Brooke Turner, Hester Goodman, George Hinchliffe, Richie Williams, Kitty Lux, Will Grove-White and Jonty Bankes.
George Hinchliffe is the Uke’s spokesman and founding member and had a chat with us prior to the tour….
Why the ukulele?
Some of us in the Orchestra have been in rock and soul bands – and if you tried carrying a Hammond organ, it takes around four people to carry and a Leslie speaker – two people can carry around, so it’s a big effort to get the one instrument around the place. I guess you could think about piccolo or harmonica, but really the uke was the best instrument for us as it provided more opportunities.
Apart from its Hawaiian origins, the awareness of the ukulele was not strong in England and in 80s, it felt like an instrument without much baggage. So for use it meant we could do own thing with it without comparison and provided a fresh start.
Now 30 years later it’s a bit different – lots of people play and have an attitude to it. Lots of people think it’s a social instrument you can play with a lot of people.
When we started playing there were a lot of people playing on their own but now the default position for uke is a group.
So essentially, it’s a cheap, portable instrument, which means a lack of baggage, and also my guess is we’d got a sort of political theoretical starting point we didn’t want to talk about in a pretentious way.
It’s a humble instrument a good way to start. Whether it’s a comedy or rugby song – you don’t get questioned about it if it’s on a uke, rather than an organ.
What age did you get into it?
I got into it around the age of eight when a friend of my father’s paid him with stuff rather than money – it was perfectly legitimate stuff by the way, but in it was a working steam engine model and an old ukulele banjo and that was hanging around for a while.
I’d asked Dad to help me get it working and we went to the music shop and got strings, and the guy there at the shop got me interested by giving me a book Really the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow – all about prohibition, drugs, jazz…. That got me into reading about the jazz greats of the 20s and 30s. I liked old jazz when I was young, then newer jazz and rock. I was aware at an early age, that drink and drugs and gangsters could be a part of the business….
When we turn up at a gig with long coats and instrument cases under the arm people look a bit threatened – I find that rather entertaining.
Lot of people got put off music in school because it’s so formal. People of my age liked music to listen to, but at school we got diverted away from turning it into “playing”. People have returned to music through uke as they can play it on a simple instrument without having to go through the academic hoopla that they’re put through. Once music or art as a subject becomes a discipline, there’s something intrinsically wrong and it acquires an attitude.
But music should be to fundamentally to “play” – it’s a playful thing even if a sad song or deep emotional music.
It’s very easy to overlook that and people have reconnected with that aspect of music – it should be fun and playful.
We get a sizeable minority of our audience are uke enthusiasts but we wouldn’t be as popular if we attracted only those.
What was your own musical background?
I took piano lessons as a kid and hated doing exams. I carried on with lessons but was certain I didn’t want to do music for a living. Somehow it didn’t connect with me all that much – I used to go swimming and go to astronomy club.
But uke made a big difference and after a while it dawned on me I was playing uke and piano but hadn’t made the connection between the fact they were both music.
Finally I twigged it was the same stuff. I remember sitting down at the piano and play the chord on the uke and translated all chords on the uke to piano and vice versa and suddenly it all started to come alive. That’s when I started to connect with the reality you could understand it technically and theoretically.
I went to art school in Leeds and didn’t do much art and when I left I moved to London and started the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. I also had other side projects.
How did the group get together?
UOGB started off when Kitty and I were friends in Leeds and she’d been at uni and I’d been at the polytechnic and we’d done odd bits of music there.
One of my friends from the same course had moved to London with his partner about the same time and there were four of us who started kicking around playing the ukulele.
A uke was lying around Kitty’s flat and pretty soon we had four people finding it fun and various friends joined in. A couple of friends already played mandolin and uke and before we knew where we were, we had seven people interested.
We did a gig in a local pup and put an advert in a local listing and it was heaving. We got a couple more gigs and a few months after that we got a call from the BBC and we did a Radio 1 session with John Peel. Then we thought why don’t we get the money from TV and radio to do an album.
After our first album came out we had a phone call from CBS in Japan wanting to license it. Without even trying we’d got five albums out in Japan and a couple out in the UK, gigs and TV and film music.
This was supposed to be a fun one-off project and it snowballed. This happened because we weren’t uptight and we were having fun and therefore it enabled us to connect with energy and fun, which translated well.
In a way the public told us what we were doing in our spare time was fun and energetic.
We never had a problem with it being either serious or not serious. Others may have been a little bit resentful at the start.
That was the first incarnation of the band – some moved away and some more moved in but we had the same core group.
In 1990 to ensure the continuity of performing we moved to our own club. We had some good tours to Japan, Canada, the U.S and around England – it wasn’t like we were struggling with only pub gigs – but we wanted our own club.
Time out Magazine named us gig of the week half a dozen times. So we moved to a tiny little room at the top of a club and charged a quid to get in and we were getting gig of a week.
Then we had a following and we needed to get a bigger place so moved to Settlesharp House – home of the English Folk Dance and Song society – which was a more congenial environment.
Despite personnel changes the core group stayed remarkably stable.
Do you ever get tired of the ukulele?
What else is there?! One of the things I say about that is it’s not the case with uke enthusiasts – for us it’s like a tool – a pencil, paintbrush or camera.
Part of the appeal for most of us is it’s a relatively cheap, rough and ready people’s instrument.
A complex, expensive instrument is not what interests us. It’s about the music, not the instrument, but on the whole because it’s to do with music.
Performance is enjoyable and we like doing it and the audience responds.
Do you all have different ukuleles?
If we were at home or in the studio yes we have a number of ukes each, but we tend to take only one each with us on the road.
Jonty plays bass, Richie plays baritone sometimes I play baritone, (normally I play tenor), Kitty and Hester have concert ukes and Will and Dave play normal ukes – Will plays a Martin and Dave plays a Gibson. Hester and Peter play in the higher tuning.
So there is a range of instruments and tuning and some tiny instruments such as the Ripineo ukes – high ukes – an octave higher than normal.
What’s your favourite uke?
My favourite ukes include a tenor tuned quite low, so the pitch is down into guitar register but the top strings are as high as a normal uke so increased the range.
I also like Island eight-string ukes and have a baritone with eight-strings tuned in a similar way.
Are you looking forward to your tour to Australia? Do you have any particular expectations?
This is the first tour to Australia for the group, but most of us have been there as individuals and all eight of us will be there.
It’s hard to predict what to expect – I wouldn’t like to go out on a limb saying what I think will happen.
I’m hoping we’ll find really good enthusiastic audiences and some enthusiasts with their instruments.
We’ve been talking to people for quite a few years about coming and various plans that never quite made the light of day were being worked on until now.
What can Australian audiences expect?
We’re wanting to do some songs familiar to Aussie audiences but they’ll be kept a surprise.
Some of the Australian artists we know and love include Rolf Harris, some of his songs are jokey and some are really good. He was at Glastonbury when we were and was a consummate performer.
Kylie could be a possibility as one of the songs I occasionally sing by a female artist. I like the thought of some overweight white Englishman singing a woman’s song as it has the potential for being funny. I’ve always contemplated “I Should Be So Lucky”. She’s brilliant.
Nick Cave is also fabulous - I’ve seen him live and some friends of mine worked with him on tours too.
We do try to make it arse-kicking rock on ukes but you don’t pick up the symbols of the genre – you only hear the melody and the song itself, which provides a completely different musical platform.
