Blog Posts

The Davenport Johnson SHOP is open!

5/19/2015

We've had numerous requests for t-shirts and stuff in general and we're proud to say the stars have finally aligned! We've just opened up our "stuff shop" for business! And what a shop it is....

You can cover you top half with T-s, pour your favorite brew in our mugs and stick our stickers to anything you'd like to add a little "Davenport Johnson!" vibe to... plus, of course, pick up copies of our CDs and MP3s!

We excited to see these designs wrapped around and splashed across these high quality items. But then again, why wouldn't we?

However, we're even more excited that the folks who are interested can finally fill their closets and cupboards with as much Davenport Johnson memorabilia as they like.

Plus we'll be adding new designs as they become available so if your favorite isn't there stop back by now and again to see what we're up to.

Just click the button directly below to take a gander at all things Davenport Johnson!

SHOP --- Davenport Johnson --- SHOP

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What's The Buzz? Pineapple Poundcake!

4/22/2015

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The first single from our upcoming CD "Constellation," has only been out a few weeks and folks are already starting to buzz about it. Which kinda tickles us, as you might imagine, so we decided to share just a little bit of their feedback, and a send out a big THANKS from all three of us to everyone who felt the urge to let us know what they thought!

"It's wonderful! …can't wait to hear more""
- Richard Hirschman, fan of our first EP "Squinch"

"I checked it out, sounds great! I'm in the middle of my morning forum scan and I can attest that Pineapple Poundcake pairs well with my morning coffee. ;-)"
- photoshooter from Ukulele Underground

"Love the lyrics! Good job!"
- Joe from the Flea Market Music forum

"A fun groove that makes my mouth smile and my feet move."
- Linda DeShazor, fan of our first EP "Squinch."

"I listened, and then listened again. Catchy, upbeat, and my toes were tapping… good fun. And I think I've got the lyrics memorized! When will the CD be available?"
- Bill from Ukulele Underground

And our now good friend Carl Nestor felt so strongly about it he produced the "guaranteed to give you a smile or at least a healthy grin" video you can see here.

We feel just as good about the rest of the "Constellation" CD and we can't wait to share it with the world. And with less than a week left that wait won't be very long!

We’ll have it up on the front page of the website, as well as CD Baby, Amazon, iTunes and anywhere else on the web you get your music from these days.

A dozen original compositions, 10 instrumentals and 2 vocal infused journeys that range from mildly acoustic to wildly electric and back again.
On Uke-aholic Records... Available April 28th!

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SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: MY door into the world Of ukulele!

4/7/2015

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Dave-id here... I've had a few folks mention that based on my musical influences (read about them here) it's seems odd that my instrument of choice would be the ukulele.

All I can say is… it's not odd to me. The ukulele is the instrument that inspires me, and the artists listed play music that inspires me. I don't feel one has to dictate the other, or vice versa, but that they overlap to form an integral whole of what the music I like to play has become.

I started my musical life on a trumpet, and although I took piano lessons for a short time, the trumpet was always my main instrument throughout high school. Years later I took up guitar, but I was never able to get my mind wrapped around chords and my fingers didn't seem to wanna make the shapes necessary. Ouch. So, I ended up using the guitar to play single note at a time lead lines, like a trumpet player. I'd put CDs in the player and just lead along with everything in my collection. This kept me pretty satisfied music-wise.

Fast forward to a day when my wife and I were watching Spongebob Squarepants (we're an avid animation fans!) and we suddenly became aware of the soundtrack. This was the early Spongebob and the soundtrack featured real music, mostly ukulele based. It was so nice to hear that instead of the keyboard-centric "canned' stuff that was populating most kids cartoons at the time, that we were smitten.

Soon after that I was cruising around ebay looking for something for her birthday and I bumped into a soprano Flea from Flea Market Music that was hand painted by Tiki King to look like a pineapple. Wow, an instrument that would make the sound we heard on Spongebob that also looked like his house! I couldn't pass it up.

Needless to say, she loved it. And so did I. The more I heard the sound she was making with it, the more I knew I needed to play with that sound too. So I got myself a tenor Fluke from Flea Market as well. Little did I know how much that would change the musical landscape of my life.

Suddenly chords shapes were easy to make (well, most of them anyway ;-) and little melodies and rhythm patterns started emerging from seemingly out of nowhere. It made more sense than guitar to me, since I've got four fingers available on my fretting hand and the instrument has four strings. I enjoyed making "uke music" with it, but I also found myself rocking out and playing other genres of music as well. It seemed to be a conduit for anything my musical muse was leaning me towards.

I've barely taken my guitar from it's case since, which was almost 10 years ago! I became a uke-aholic, hence the name of Davenport Johnson's label, with serious UAS (ukulele acquisition syndrome) and haven't regretted a moment of it.

I enjoy listening to many an artist that uses the ukulele as their main axe. Besides the three gentlemen listed in the last paragraph of my influence list, I also enjoy Victoria Vox, Gerald Ross, Jake Shimabukuro, Ohta-San, and many, many others. Listening to them taught me a uke could be a lot of different things, but they weren't as big an influence on me musically as the folks in the main part of the list.

I guess I'm not the kind of person that feels ukuleles should only be used to make what people have usually thought of as "ukulele music." I like music, and I like my ukueles, and whatever sound I make with them, whether that's mildly acoustic or wildly electric is good by me.

(Warning: blatant advertisement alert) And that's a pretty good description of the range of sounds the three of us make on our new CD "Constellation." Mildly acoustic to wildly electric. Check it out on April 28th.

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UKEFARM RADIO ADDS "PINEAPPLE POUNDCAKE" TO IT'S PLAYLIST!!!!

3/21/2015

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If you're into ukulele music, and you must be a little or you probably wouldn't even be reading this, then you owe it to yourself to check out John Baxter's UkeFram Radio at http://www.ukefarmradio.com/index.html
or click here.

John honored us this past week by adding the first single "Pineapple Poundcake" from "Constellation" to his playlist! I gotta say it's pretty darn cool to be rubbing elbows and strumming arms with such a impressive gathering of ukulele talent.

UkeFrarm radio offers a wide array of genres from classic Hawaiian to Tin Pan Alley to all sorts of singer-songwriters and, well, pretty much every style in-between! It's a ukulele buffet and it's being served up 24 hours a day… and it's free! (Although to listen without ads you'll need a paid subscription, but it's nice to have the option of either/or.)

I heard well known ukulele artists like Jake Shimabukuro, Victoria Vox, Daniel Ho and Lyle Ritz as well as folks that, until I tuned in, I wasn't yet familiar with like Beth Withney, Kelli Rae Powell, Uku The Mighty and Lucky Uke... all in the space of an hour or so.

Plus there were plenty of performers that I'd heard of, but never actually heard. So it's a really great source for checking out new ukulele tuneage before you buy.

THANKS for making us a part of your ukulele world John, we appreciate it!

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The first single from "Constellation" is... "Pineapple PounDcake!" - Hear it here!

3/18/2015

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It's an all-acoustic little ditty that starts out with a single ukulele rhythm pattern, then a bass, lead uke and second rhythm ukulele join in and the song really takes off. You can listen to it at the bottom of this post or on our home page here.

It also includes our tribute to "Pennsylvania 6-5000"* thrown in for good measure, yep you read that right, and we think it's a real a toe tapper.

Timothy Jay started playing the rhythm part during a rehearsal as a break from the more focused work we doing at the time. Chris and I quickly joined in and suddenly we realized we wanted to refocus our rehearsal. We were all just having so much fun with each other on this that we stuck with it the rest of the night until it solidified into the track you’ll hear here.

During those initial run throughs it was tentatively titled “Pineapple Lovefest,” but the more we rehearsed it the more it sounded like we were calling out a fondness for the female anatomy. Once you get an idea like that in your head it’s hard to get rid of it. Not that we don’t all share that particular fondness, but it’s just not the kind of thing we generally choose to right songs about. (Although who knows what the future holds. ;-)

Anyway after trying out a bevy of alternatives, all starting with “pineapple” because not only was that first rhythm part tickled out of an DaSilva all-bamboo pineapple tenor ukulele, but to our ears the song had a decidedly Hawaiian flavor, we finally settled on “Pineapple Poundcake.”

There's only 42 more days before the full CD "Constellation" is released, so mark your calendars on April 28th and come back for details on how you can get your copy!

*for those who aren’t familiar, “Pennsylvania 6-5000” is a big band instrumental… well mostly instrumental, first made famous by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1940.

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Here's A Sneak Peek at The Cover for Davenport Johnson's new CD!

3/15/2015

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The cover for our upcoming CD "Constellation" is finished and we wanted to share it.

We're going to be releasing our first single "Pineapple Poundcake" later this week, so come back and get a taste of the album!

In the meantime here's the cover! We ARE excited! Only a month an a half before the full CD drops on April 28th!

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The Title Of The New Davenport johnson CD WILL BE...

3/11/2015

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"Constellation." And it'll be released on April 28th!

When you look up into the night sky you see unrelated stars that, from our earthly point of view, seem to be so close together as to form pictures. Such are the songs on our upcoming CD. While they express music in a few different styles, from our point of view they form a bigger picture that will hold them together forever in our eyes (and ears!)

With touches of Americana, folk, newgrass, alt. country, rock 'n' roll and even some jazz influences, we're thinking we may need to coin a new genre name for what we do. Alt. Folk?

Anyway, we're super proud of the final mixes and can't wait for them to be heard and hopefully loved by everyone out there.

We'll be previewing a track from it on our home page in the near future as well as revealing the cover image in a few weeks. It's looking very cool in the sketch stages!

And don't forget the CD itself will be available at CD Baby, as well as the digital version everywhere digital music is sold, on April 28th!

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Guest Artists Lend ThEIr Voices To Davenport Johnson's First Non-Instrumentals!

1/20/2015

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Two stellar singers agreed to add their vocal touches to our upcoming CD.

On a song titled "Bound & Tied," Timothy Jay took lead vocal duties and guest artist Erica Middleton came into the studio to lay down the background vocal. We gave her the freedom to go anywhere she wanted to and she rose to the occasion. She recorded 4 tracks of completely different takes.

During playback we accidentally left all four tracks on and loved what we heard! A single support vocal turned into a haunting vocal group and we decided to mix it that way. This is also our fist song to use a harmonica for the main riff, although the driving force behind it all is still ukuleles!

On "Protecting Comforts," Katherine Rawson joined our little party. Her moody lead vocal gave the song exactly what it needed to be a keeper. We basically turned into her back-up group, and couldn't be happier about it.

We wanna thank both these artists for lending a hand (and a set of vocal chords) and hope we'll hear more of them on our tracks in the future…. maybe our trio will eventually become a five-o. ;-)

So after adding Chris Was on bass, we've stretched it further with vocalists and harmonica, but we think you'll still recognize that DJ sound when the new album hits the streets, and e-tailers everywhere on April 28th!

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DAVENPORT JOHNSON MORPHS FROM DUO INTO TRIO

1/12/2015

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This past year Timothy Jay and I have seen a lot of growth. We've written a lot of new songs and listened to the muse's call to try new things. The biggest of which was jamming with a bass player, Chris Was, just to see what our sound would be like expanding the low end.

The more we jammed together, the more we liked it. Playing with Chris just felt right and it quickly became clear that what he brought to the party was more than just a "support" sound.

His classical guitar background was influencing his bass parts in ways that we could never had written for him. And he was also bringing in melodies and riffs that inspired new songs to emerge.

So we invited him to be an official member of the group. Our duo is now a trio of players who make the kind of music we like to hear whether anyone else is listening or not. We still aren't sure what the style or genre is exactly, but that isn't stopping us from putting together our first full album!

Stay tuned…..

-Dave-id

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Forward>>

The Davenport Johnson SHOP is open!

What's The Buzz? Pineapple Poundcake!

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: MY door into the world Of ukulele!

UKEFARM RADIO ADDS "PINEAPPLE POUNDCAKE" TO IT'S PLAYLIST!!!!

The first single from "Constellation" is... "Pineapple PounDcake!" - Hear it here!

Here's A Sneak Peek at The Cover for Davenport Johnson's new CD!

The Title Of The New Davenport johnson CD WILL BE...

Guest Artists Lend ThEIr Voices To Davenport Johnson's First Non-Instrumentals!

DAVENPORT JOHNSON MORPHS FROM DUO INTO TRIO

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