New album from Jake Shimabukuro celebrates pop music hitmakers

Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro got the idea while watching “KPop Demon Hunters,” the wildly popular Netflix animated movie about a K-pop girl group whose members have secret lives hunting demons.

“My kids said I should learn one of the songs from the movie and play it on the ukulele, so I started messing around with ‘Golden,’” he said, referring to the Oscar- and Grammy- winning tune. “I played it at a couple of the shows and people just loved it. A lot of kids come to our shows, and every time I play it you can see them singing along in their seats.”

With “Golden” as his first pick, Shimabukuro continued exploring the melodies of recent pop hits by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and others. As he did, a theme came into focus and the setlist for an album jelled.

The album, “Pop Experience,” will be released digitally and on CD July 10.

A preview single, Shimabukuro’s instrumental arrangement of “Golden,” is available to stream at jakeshimabukuro.lnk.to/golden.

Shimabukuro says there is a lot to listen to in that one song alone.

“There are basically three different melodic themes that are going on throughout the song, and what I love about them is that all three of those melodic themes can all be stacked upon each other, and they work so well (together),” he explained. “I take all three parts and I just layer them and stack them on top of each other. I play each part separately, of course, throughout the song, but then at the end, I just stack them and layer them up upon each other.”

Speaking in broader terms, Shimabukuro describes the decision to record another artist’s hit as the musical equivalent of a sports fan wearing the jersey of a favorite athlete.

“It’s a celebration of your admiration and respect for that artist. So when I get to do a lot of these songs, I get to put on my Taylor Swift jersey, I get to put on my Ariana Grande jersey, and just kind of celebrate their music and their artistry and their incredible talent.”

Shimabukuro also enjoys the challenge of recreating in concert the multitrack arrangements he creates in the recording studio.

“I have a device called a looper, which allows me to play something and record it in real time, and then I can stop the recording, and then have whatever I just played play back, and it’ll just keep repeating itself,” Shimabukuro said. “Then I can add another layer, and then I can add another layer, and another layer, and it’ll just keep stacking these layers over each other.

“That gives a really cool effect, but it’s basically like multitracking, like what we do in the studio, but it allows me to multitrack in real time. The looper allows me to do that.”

Shimabukuro’s skill at reworking the hits of other artists was the thing that launched him internationally — outside of Hawaii and Japan — in 2006. A recording of him playing George Harrison’s 1968 Beatles hit, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” originally filmed for a New York television show, became one of the first viral videos on YouTube.

“George Harrison was a big fan of the ukulele, so I think there’s some kind of magic behind interpreting one of his songs on an instrument that he appreciated. I never got a chance to ask him, but I always wondered if he got the ideas for some of those songs, like ‘Here Comes the Sun’ or ‘Something’ or even ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ tinkering on the ukulele because they work so well on ukulele; the chord voicings are so natural (and) they just progress so naturally on that instrument.”

Harrison, who lived for many years in Nahiku, Maui, died in 2001, and Shimabukuro never had the opportunity to talk music with him, but he has a good working relationship with Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, and son, Dhani.

“We’re working on a project together right now where they selected about 15 of George’s songs and asked me to interpret them on ukulele. We actually flew up to Abbey Road Studios and recorded about 12 of the songs, so we’re almost done with the record. They’re producing it, and they’re allowing me to take the creative liberties and reinterpret these tunes.”

Beyond those two projects, this is a big year for Shimabukuro personally. He’ll celebrate his 50th birthday in December and says he doesn’t feel “old.”

“I can’t believe I’m turning 50 — that’s crazy to me,” he said. “I still feel like I’m in my 20s or 30s, but the time just flew by so quickly. I was just talking with Jon (Yamasato) and Lopaka (Colon) about that. The three of us got together back in 1996 (as Pure Heart). That was 30 years ago.”

That reminiscence sets up the perennial question: Could there be a Pure Heart reunion or new Pure Heart music down the line?

The trio — Shimabukuro, Yamasato and Colon — were impressively tight and clearly concert-ready when they played at the CrimeStoppers Honolulu 16th Annual Gala of Guardians at Waialae Country Club last year. Could they coordinate their busy solo schedules for later this year or maybe in 2027?

“I would love to do that,” Shimabukuro said. “Back then there was a certain magic and energy. We were all young, and it was a very special time in our lives where everything musically that we experienced together for the first time — being in the studio for the first time, releasing an album for the first time, hearing one of our songs on a radio for the first time — it was all together, all those first-time moments that you can only have once.”

He says he’s open to doing it again.

“It’s so special when we get to do things together today and reflect back, and we can talk about, ‘Remember when this happened, or remember when we did that?’ Now we’re all older, and we’re all dads, but when we get to come back and play these songs that we used to play when we were teenagers, it takes me back to my youth,” Shimabukuro said.

“It makes me feel young again. To think that that was 30 years ago, that just blows my mind.”