About Jake Shimabukuro
Jake Shimabukuro (born November 3, 1976) is an American ukulele player and composer from Hawaii known for his fast and complex finger work. His music combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco. Shimabukuro has written numerous original compositions, including the entire soundtracks to two Japanese films, Hula Girls (2007) and Sideways (2009), the Japanese remake of the American film of the same name. Well known in Hawai’i and Japan during his early solo career in the early 2000s, Shimabukuro became famous internationally in 2006, when a video of him playing a virtuosic rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was posted on YouTube without his knowledge and became one of the first viral videos on that site. His concert engagements, collaborations with well-known musicians, media appearances, and music production have snowballed since then. In 2012, an award-winning documentary was released tracking his life, career, and music, titled Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings; it has screened in a variety of festivals, aired repeatedly on PBS, and been released on DVD. Sony Japan, however, only releases Shimabukuro's music in Japan, and to release the music in Hawaii, he created the Hitchhike Records label. The new group Colón released one album, The Groove Machine (2000), and won the Hoku Award for Favorite Entertainer of the Year in 2001. All of them except Dragon won both Na Hoku Awards and Hawaii Music Awards, and Dragon won the Hawaii Music Award for Best Rock Album and peaked at #5 on Billboard's Top World Music Albums in 2005.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.