Jake Shimabukuro and Henry Kapono

Jake Shimabukuro’s mother gave him his first ukulele at the age of four, and he’s barely stopped playing the instrument ever since. He made his name originally as a member of the Hawaiian trio Pure Heart, who debuted in 1998 to massive critical and commercial success, winning four Na Hoku Hanohano awards (Hawaiian equivalent of the Grammys) for their self-titled 1998 debut album alone. However, Pure Heart had split by 2000, and the band that Shimabukuro formed in the aftermath split in 2002, leading Shimabukuro to start a solo career the very same year. Thanks to his manager Kazusa Flanagan, he signed a contract with Epic Records International (a division of Sony Records Japan), and began touring all over Japan and his native country.

With several succesful album releases in Japan and a thriving record label of his own making handling his Hawaiian releases, it looked as good as it was ever going to get for Shimabukuro, but in 2006, it got even better. Shimabukuro had filmed a segment for a cult television show based in New York called Midnight Ukulele Disco where he’d played a virtuosic interpretation of The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Somebody recorded his set and posted it on YouTube, where it was viewed over 13 million times in its first couple of months on the site. Widely regarded as one of the first viral videos ever, it gave Shimabukuro a worldwide career and got him to tour with everyone from Jimmy Buffet to Cyndi Lauper.

Ever since then, Shimabukuro has remained pretty much the most high profile ukulele player in the world, with several succesful world tours and an album, 2010’s “Peace Love Ukulele” that reached number one on the Billboard World Music Albums chart in 2011 and 2012. His performances are still second to none, as are his records, and because of that, Jake Shimabukuro comes highly recommended.