Some years ago, ukulele and small instrument maker David Poplar heard me playing a store bought ukulele at a concert in his area. He approached me and offered to make me a custom uke. David builds in an old world style, using no power tools. His philosophy is that these truly unique instruments are rustic and folkloric instruments. Now we have built a player-builder relationship and Poplar has made several very exotic sounding ukuleles for me, featured here on my site and recorded on my album 'Novella'. I have a Poplar three string, a five string, a couple of beautiful tenor ukuleles, and a parlor guitar. The parlor guitar is a replica of an old Torres from Spain; it's the same guitar that you see Sting using in concert these days.