From Hawaii to Nashville: Ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro mixes it up at SLO concert

As his faithful fans can attest, Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro excels at putting exciting new spins on classic songs.

The performer first found international fame in 2006, when a video of him playing George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Sleeps” surfaced on YouTube. (That video now has more than 15 million views.) Since then, he’s applied his talents for innovative arranging and masterful playing to everything from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

But Shimabukuro branches into less familiar territory on “Nashville Sessions,” his first album composed entirely of original songs.

“I like changing it up every once in a while,” acknowledged the ukulele player, who performs Wednesday at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo.

“As a musician,” he said, “you want to be continually motivated to be creating new stuff. You want to be inspired to keep coming up with new ideas.”

Reached by phone on the road in Pennsylvania, Shimabukuro talked about his bold new direction.

“When you cover a popular song, once you start playing, the audience is already with you,” said the performer, who turned 40 earlier this month. “There’s a lot of pressure that’s taken off you because people already know the song. All you have to do is play the melody.”

“When you’re doing your own original pieces, it takes a little more patience” and persistence, he continued. “They (the audience members) have to be open to the new ideas.”

The subject of the 2012 documentary “Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings,” Shimabukuro said he went to Nashville in January with the simple intention of writing some new tunes.

Before he teamed up with two skilled session players — drummer Evan Hutchings and bassist Nolan Verner — Shimabukuro spent some time with a couple of his heroes, including bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas and country star Vince Gill of The Time Jumpers.

“It was great to just share ideas with those guitars and hear their stories,” Shimabukuro said. “I was just so inspired.”

That inspiration clearly carried over into the recording studio, where he, Hutchings and Verner spent six days crafting an album that spans sonically from bluegrass to jazz to psychedelia-laced progressive rock.

“I expected two original songs,” Shimabukuro said, but he and his collaborators ended up with 13 tracks. “We just couldn’t believe it.”

The ukulele player credits the effortless chemistry and creative openness the trio shared.

“We were just able to read each other so well,” he said. “It was like we had been playing with each other for decades. It was a tremendous experience.”

Despite his enthusiasm about “Nashville Sessions,” Shimabukuro acknowledged that he still felt some trepidation when it was time to release the album.

“I was really scared. I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh. I wonder if people are going to like it,’ ” he recalled.

Since its Sept. 23 release, “Nashville Sessions” has been getting a “really positive” response from critics and listeners alike, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.

Charleston City Paper described “Nashville Sessions as “adventurous, skillfully played, and instrumentally dazzling,” and The Associated Press likewise dubbed it “dazzling.”

“For listeners wanting to catch a snapshot of an artist in motion, the record is an exciting new step in Jake’s growth,” Greg Olwell wrote in Ukulele magazine. “Nashville Sessions,” he added, “captures the electric energy and spontaneous artistry of Jake’s live performances.”

Shimabukuro plans to open Wednesday’s concert in San Luis Obispo with a couple of tracks from “Nashville Sessions”: the evocative “Galloping Seahorses” and the funky, fusion-flavored “6/8.” Other new songs such as “Ballad” and “Blue Haiku” are sprinkled throughout the set.

“They’re just so fun to play,” he said.

Concertgoers can also expect fresh takes on familiar favorites such as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

“The songs evolve” every time Shimabukuro plays them, he said, adding that each concert teaches him something new. “You learn more about each tune. You learn more about your setup. … It’s such a great overall experience.”

This story was originally published November 23, 2016 at 11:04 AM with the headline "From Hawaii to Nashville: Ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro mixes it up at SLO concert."