James Hill started his uke-playing career with the Langley Ukulele Ensemble. Here’s an interview with the group’s founder, Peter Luongo.
His first album, Playing It Like It Isn’t, features solo ukulele covers from classical tunes to game themes.
He followed that up with two more instrumental albums with an increasing number of original tunes: On the Other Hand and A Flying Leap. In my opinion, A Flying Leap is the greatest instrumental ukulele record ever made (by so far there isn’t really any competition).
His next album True Love Don’t Weep (a collaboration with cellist Anne Davison) was a big departure. Including, for the first time, vocals and self-composed songs. It also included this blazing instrumental piece Ode to a Frozen Boot.
Around this time James seemed to get frustrated with the limits of the ukulele and began experimenting with percussive techniques (demonstrated on Billie Jean) including some outlandish use of chopsticks.
But he was also obviously working on songwriting too. His latest album Man with a Love Song is his first entirely self-penned album and features a majority of vocal tracks.
This presentation was easy for me. Since I first heard James Hill I have considered him to be the best Ukulele Artist around. I thoroughly enjoyed this site. I will look forward to the next time. Thanks, Jack