William Tapia

William Tapia stood up in front of United States solders playing his ukulele and singing at the tender age of eight years old. He was entertaining the troops for World War I and did not stop playing until the year of his passing at the age of 103!  His life in music was almost as fasinating as his interest in sharing the gift of music to all those he met.  Over the years he created a unique sound on the uke and tenor uke, which he recorded and can be heard on many movie sound tracks. He was hired by several movie studios over the years to teach their stars to play the ukulele for movie parts. Over the years he designed several models of the ukulele and provided ideas to many of his luthier friends in creating special instruments over the many decades he made music.