Okay, it can't all be serious, part 1

He's been compared to Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen. But he plays classical as well as rock and blues. While he performs solo for the more serious, classical pieces, in a group, he plugs his instrument in "goes nuts," playing the strings with his teeth or using a pedal board. On a recent tour of Japan, a joint performance with the popular band Tube drew a crowd of 35,000.

All of which is pretty cool since his instrument is the ukulele, all four strings and two octaves of it.

Our virtuoso's name is Jake Shimabukuro, a fourth-generation Japanese-American from Honolulu. He's been playing the ukulele since he was four. He says he still considers the uke a "toy" because it's so much fun to play but wants to convince people to appreciate the instrument as an untapped source of musical performance.

Who knows? He just might do it.