I was recently in the other Portland, the one in Maine, and had a chance to visit Earnest Instruments and have a brief chat with my friend Joel Eckhaus. Well, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with a beautiful Stradelele tenor uke Joel built. The design for the ukulele came from a guitar built by Antonio Stradivari in 1700. It has a curly mahogany back and sides, spruce top and a wonderful full tone.

Here I am playing it on the Gideon Freudmann song, Manila Waltz.