BEN LOMOND -- Songs from the soundtrack of the 1986 movie "Stand By Me" wafted through the forested area behind the Mountains Art Center on Saturday, with well-placed blasts from a kazoo punctuating the playful lyrics of the Shirley and Lee song, "Let the Good Times Roll."

The performance by members of the newly formed Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz Orchestra was the second in the three-part summer series, "Ukuleles Gone Wild." The line-up also included performances from Three in a Chord and several soloists, all of them playing on an elevated wooden stage while about a dozen members of the audience strummed along with their own instruments.

Carolee Burrows, a Felton resident and member of the Ukulele Club, also sits on the board of directors for the Mountains Art Center, which provides education, exhibition and cultural activities in support of the arts.

The summer concert series started in 2004, mainly as a festive excuse to get community members together for camaraderie to bask in their shared love of music.

"The ukulele is just bringing people together in music because it's so easy to play -- I mean, you can literally learn it in 15 minutes," she said as -- veering away from the "Stand By Me" theme -- Three in a Chord continued its rendition of The Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."

On Saturday mornings behind the Kind Grind at the Santa Cruz harbor, Burrows added, "they have 150 people who don't know each other playing ukuleles together."

Ukuleles have been enjoying a resurgence in popularity in recent years, possibly because they're inexpensive compared with similar stringed instruments such as a guitars and basses.

The day's festivities were dedicated to Bill Coombs, a longtime ukulele player and singer with the band All Shook Up, who died recently after battling stomach cancer.

 

TO ATTEND

The last installment of the summer concert series will be held 3-6 p.m. Aug. 27. For information, go to www.MountainArtCenter.org or call 336-3513.