Jake Shimabukuro & Mick Fleetwood Got The Blues On New Collaborative Album

Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and Fleetwood Mac legend Mick Fleetwood teamed for a new album, Blues Experience, due out October 18 via Forty Below Records. The pair previewed the record today with their take on the blues standard, “Rollin’ N Tumblin.”

Shimabukuro met Fleetwood at the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (Hawaiian Music Awards) in the late 1990s performing alongside Kenny Logins. The pair rekindled their relationship at a Fleetwood Mac reunion concert where they began conceptualizing a collaborative project leading to recording sessions.

“I’ve always wanted to do a Blues album,” Shimabukuro stated, “and when Mick and I started talking about working together, I thought who better to work with than Mick Fleetwood?”

The pair tracked nine songs for Blues Experience over the course of two, three-day recording sessions with bassist Jackson Waldhoff and keyboard player Michael Grande.

Guest turns on the record include Mark Johnstone of The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band adding keyboards to “Need Your Love So Bad” — first recorded by Little Willie John in 1955 and subsequently cut by Fleetwood Mac in 1968 — and a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World.” Slide guitar great Sonny Landreth contributed to the Jeff Beck/Stevie Wonder classic “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers.”

Also of note on Blues Experience is the LP’s sole original, Shimabukuro’s “Kula Blues,” written about the area in Maui where Fleetwood lives. The album concludes with “Songbird,” written by Mick’s late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie.

Shimabukuro further detailed the Blues Experience sessions with Fleetwood.

“Mick’s energy when he plays is so infectious. He’s such an intense musician. He pushes everyone around him, and it’s inspiring to see his facial expressions and watch his movement and the way he hits the drums.”

Providing the first preview of Blues Experience is “Rollin’ N Tumblin,” first recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929 with interpretations of the song recorded by Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Cream and more.

“Jake and I had a full let-it-all-go moment on this one!!” Mick said of “Rollin’ N Tumblin.” “Jake let his hair down. A Blues standard being given a wake-up call!”

Check out an in-studio video of “Rollin’ N Tumblin,” premiered by Relix, below:

Blues Experience Tracklist:

1. Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers
2. Rollin’ N Tumblin’
3. Need Your Love So Bad
4. Kula Blues
5. Whiter Shade of Pale
6. I Wanna Get Funky
7. Still Got The Blues
8. Rockin’ In The Free World
9. Songbird
10. Songbird (Mick spoken word)