Bosko & Honey present - Ukulele Safari Volume 1 - REVIEW

As promised, it is about time I shared my review of the Bosko and Honey CD of their Ukulele Safari.  My CD arrived last week (along with some cool B and H stickers!) and has been on heavy rotation ever since

The CD is a compilation of ukulele tracks collected by Bosko and Honey and is a wonderful idea. Bosko and Honey are a non professional ukulele duo based in Australia, consisting of the Australian Daniel "Bosko" Siddhartha and Yukie Toda (Honey) from Japan.  They took their name from an old Looney Tunes cartoon!

Over 11 months in 2008, they toured round the world with their ukuleles, visiting lots of countries in Europe, and the US, and Japan.  Along the way they recorded songs and interviewers with uke players around the globe and started featuring videos of the recordings on their website and YouTube.  The CD is a collection of those songs put together and it is certainly a real treat!

What first struck me about the CD is the quality of the production - not just the quality of the recordings themselves, (which are great) but also the packaging and design, provided by the wonderful Shelley Rickey.  (who also appears on the CD in her uke outfit "The Uke Box" .  The CD cover is great and it comes with a full colour booklet providing a short bio of each of the artists on the CD.   An amateur CD this is NOT!

There is also real variety here across the 22 tracks - we have everything from folk to punk, sung in a variety of languages and the constant change in musical style is a joy to listen to.  Some of the talent on display here is quite staggering.  Those who are more seasoned in the world of ukulele will recognise many of the names on this disc, and in fact you may have come across some of them already on the various uke forums out there, on twitter or on Facebook.  If you are new to ukulele then this CD is certainly worth your time just to show you the variety that can be brought out of this great little instrument.  Of course, Bosko and Honey play on the CD too!

Best of all, at the present time, B and H are very very kindly donating all proceeds from the sale of their CD to the Japanese Red Cross Appeal set up to help those many thousands so dreadfully affected by the recent Earthquake and Tsunami.

You can find out more about Bosko & Honey on their Bosko and Honey website which tells the story of the safari, has many videos of their performances, and of course has a link in which you can buy the CD.

Track listing below - thanks guys!  I won't pick my favourites as that wouldn't be fair (but I do have them!)

1. Bosko and Honey - Road Trip

2. Peter Madcap Ruth - Red Winged Blackbird

3. Sumakichan - Mamorunjah Theme Song

4. Tim Sweeney - Back To You

5. Gerald Ross - Lemon Peel Rag

6. Daisy Dobuyuki - Ukulele Daddy

7. The Windy City Islanders - We're Having A Luau

8. Fabio KoRyu Calabro - Ukustrocca Filalele

9. Tarasuna - Kaze ga naku

10. John Pak - Ukulele Safari

11. Ukulelezaza - Lilli K

12. Max The Ukulele Punk Rocker - Please Stay

13. Shigeto - Kokyu

14. Gensblue (with Bosko and Honey) - Earthquake

15. Ukulele Igor - Carelian Stomp

16. Taka and Nya Mi - Chiisana te

17. Yannick Van Loo - Mots de tetes

18. Jon Prown - Thirty Below

19. Yalego - In The Pines

20. Happy Hoppy - Kodomo Blues

21. The Uke Box - Firefly Crown

22. T Yoshimura - Soul Traveller