The soundtrack for summer has just arrived.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder's new album, "Ukulele Songs," is not a novelty, but a deeply intimate and totally listenable ode to an instrument that manages -- like Vedder's voice -- to be simultaneously spare and lush, hushed and powerful. If you haven't thought about Eddie Vedder since Pearl Jam's grunge-era heyday, you've missed out, and there couldn't be a better time to rediscover both Pearl Jam and Vedder's solo work, which also includes the excellent soundtrack to "Into the Wild."
You can hear the whole album and learn how a rocker came to embrace the ukulele courtesy of NPR.
