Ken Franklin Luthier (CCMC Winter 2020)

I attended the California Coast Music Winter Camp for  the first time this year. Some people have been going for about 30 years. CCMC is a music camp mainly for string instrument players but there were some other instrumentalists: accordian, flute, keyboards, and clarinet.

To me, this was a fun weekend to explore a smorgasbord of music: Jazz, Swing, Country, Rock, Irish, Old-Time, Jug Band and Beatles. There is so much talent gathered that the music feels so full.

I had a chance to hang out with an old acquaintance from past CCMC July camps named Ken Franklin. He's a Northern California Luthier and he brought a beautiful baritone ukulele that he made. I had the chance to play it and it was of excellent craftsmanship and great tone. He has a sound hole on the small bout facing upward. I love the dual wood Ken Franklin special headstock design.

See more of Ken's work here, https://franklinguitars.com/Site/Ken_Franklin.html

In the group of about 120 players I came across two other bari-uke players and a third if you count Ken and his baritone.

Ken and I took a guitar class from Wayne Henderson about 5 years ago now. I actually took my bari to that week long class. I had to take videos at the end of class and study each of the (5) songs for a couple of hours to soak it all in. Wayne teaches by playing short excerpts and then combining them and asking the students to play and repeat. It's challenging and rewarding.