Gorton Smith will be the first to tell you he is not an instructor, but a workshop leader. He will be guiding the festival’s Sunday morning “Gospel According to Uke” sing-along session, which he has conducted with great success at every Albuquerque Ukekopelli Festival and Las Cruces UkeFest.

One of the Las Cruces Ukes board members, Gorton is a retired United Methodist pastor who has served in churches of various sizes across New Mexico and in El Paso, Texas. He’s been playing the ukulele since August 2014, and he believes there is something about a ukulele that touches the soul, and applying that to gospel and spiritual music only heightens one’s experience.