Jake & Friends

Description

Over the past two decades, Jake Shimabukuro has proven that there is no style of music he cannot play, whether it be jazz, rock, blues, bluegrass, folk, or even classical—on perhaps the most unlikely of instruments: the ukulele. Jake & Friends is not the first album on which famous guests appear alongside the Hawaii-born virtuoso. But this time the list is more than impressive: Willie Nelson, Bette Midler, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Vince Gill and Amy Grant, Jon Anderson, Ziggy Marley, Moon Taxi, Warren Haynes, Jack Johnson, Jesse Colin Young, Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel, Sonny Landreth, Lukas Nelson, Billy Strings—Shimabukuro's own head spins as he scans his high-powered guest list. Creatively, Jake & Friends is Shimabukuro's most ambitious project to date, and the two-plus years spent on it were a massive logistical undertaking. In the pre-Covid era, tracks were recorded in Maui, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Nashville, Austin, and other U.S. cities, depending on the touring schedules of the guest artists, and there were even some parts recorded remotely during lockdown.