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By Ray Routhier Sunday, April 29, 2007

I know now, after talking to Gene Nichols, that I have never really heard the ukulele.

I mean, I've heard Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in his weird vaudeville-revisited act of the 1970s. And of course I've heard Don Ho and seen the Hawaii episode of "The Brady Bunch" six or seven hundred times.

But I have never heard the power and glory of 20 ukuleles as they blare out Steppenwolf's classic '60s biker anthem "Born To Be Wild." I never even imagined such a thing possible.

Then again, I never imagined that ukulele clubs were still alive and well on college campuses, 80 years after their heyday.

Well, for sake of clarity, I only know for sure that a ukulele club is alive and well on a college campus. And you have to go pretty far to find that campus, 200 miles east of Portland at the University of Maine at Machias.

That's where a custodian happened upon a copy of the school's 1926 yearbook, and saw the smiling, happy faces of the school's ukulele club. Then music professor Gene Nichols, who taught himself to play the uke more than 40 years ago, saw it too.

And so the UMM Ukulele Club was reborn. That was in 2006.

The club gets together weekly for fun, and to practice for those important moments when they unleash the full power of a ukulele orchestra on an unsuspecting public.

They've played a wedding, campus events, St. Patrick's Day, a peace march, Earth Day. The list goes on.

Nichols praises the ukulele as an instrument for all ages. The UMaine/Machias club's membership, which includes students and community members, spans in age from 12 to 90.

So what's the attraction?

"The hard part of playing an instrument is practicing and learning notes, but with a ukulele you can jump right into the fun of singing and performing," said Rachel Rier, 19, a UMM sophomore and ukulele club member. "Even a beginner can play a couple two-chord songs the first time. So people aren't likely to get frustrated and quit."

Rier is a music major, pianist and composer who had never played ukulele before. She had never heard of college ukulele clubs, current or past, and she thought of the uke as merely a novelty instrument. Then she heard other club members playing, and was blown away by how many songs the uke could bang out.

The club's songbook has some 300 tunes, ranging from old-timey Stephen Foster stuff to rockers like Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" and The Who's "I Can See for Miles." There's also "Break On Through (To The Other Side") by The Doors, "Walk Like An Egyptian" by The Bangles, and "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers.

But it's not all rock, that crazy ukulele music. The club does country, like Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" and Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart." Plus "You're a Grand Old Flag" for patriotic events, and lots of folk songs and children's songs.

Whether or not the folks in Machias can start another "Age of the Ukulele" is hard to say. The instrument has an interesting past. Music historians say it probably originated from Portugal and was brought to Hawaii in the mid- and late 1800s during a wave of Portuguese immigration there.

In Hawaii, the ukulele really took off. That's where it got its name, and its signature sound. Then a ukulele craze hit America in the 1920s. It became the rage of college campuses. The stereotypical movie version of a 1920s American college student features a raccoon coat, a straw hat and a ukulele.

By the 1950s, the ukulele was still present in popular culture, thanks mostly to TV talent show host Arthur Godfrey. Nichols began playing the ukulele some 40 years ago, and a had a very cool 1930s model. But he sat on it in college and busted it. He had the presence of mind to save the pieces, and now, as his ukulele club is going full blast, he's looking for parts on eBay to rebuild it. In the meantime, he uses another model and plays on.

Even if Nichols and the UMM ukulele club do not start a national trend, they might at least help draw students to the small school.

The club played recently for a group of prospective students and their parents who were touring the campus.

"A young man from Massachusetts jumped up, picked up a baritone ukulele for the first time, and not only sat in with us the whole set, but wailed solos - he's a guitarist in his other life," said Nichols. "That should be a powerful enough draw for him to come to UMM."

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at: rrouthier@pressherald.com