EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
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I was too old to do much kicking and screaming about the abandonment of my extended extreme-late adolescence. At age 42, I became a father. My newborn son did plenty of kicking but, thankfully, not much screaming. Like his rock ’n’ roll lovin’ dad, his kicking is rhythmic. Like dad, he appreciates music. So I sang to my baby boy, helping us both get through the rough patches, sometimes in the middle of the night, when the meaning of my role as his Old Man became clear. And for the following day’s regularly scheduled early afternoon naps, singing while strolling him to sleep turned out to be the opportunity I needed to slow down and actually listen to the words of nursery rhymes, lullabies, standards, or to transform my favorite punk anthems, Irish drinking songs, show tunes, candy bar jingles (“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t”) or other unlikely lyrics of favorite tunes into more gentle, if still subversive and funny and engaging kid songs. He’s nearly 4 now; my boy still perks up when he hears my clumsy but heartfelt baritone attempt at folk legend and kid music ur-daddy Pete Seeger’s jazzy “Precious Friend.” No doubt, the sound is permanently linked in his little mind’s ear to naptime perambulation. “Just when I thought all was lost, you changed my mind. You gave me hope, not just the old soft soap You showed that we could learn to share in time, you and me and Rockefeller…” In nearly four years, my young son has become our collaborator in a continuing exploration of music, American music in particular. Together we have expanded our family’s CD collection, taught ourselves history and poetry, and learned songs together. The right stuff Finding genuinely lasting and meaningful music as opposed to the commercial kid stuff allows us not only to learn or relearn smart lyrics and enduring melodies, but to challenge the weird segregation of music and the arts. The industry’s marketing arm seems to have an interest in maintaining an apartheid of musical experience, where adults don’t listen to children’s music, teens can’t listen to adult music, grown-ups despair at “teen” tunes, and, sadly, old people don’t buy CDs at all. I confess that a few years ago I might have despaired at the whole idea of “kid music,” but of course it’s only a label and, as we are learning, labels are easily peeled off and discarded or, yes, stuck to the wall or refrigerator. Happily, there’s an abundance of so-called kid music that’s great for “the whole family.” It’s music with smarts and “roots” and depth, not the often crass, annoying and shallow corporate catalog. Luckily, it’s easy to find and leads to much more. That’s good news. One resource in particular, the music website CD Baby, has done lots of the work for you already. And CD Baby’s $5 introductory offer is too good to pass up. Here, then, is a sampling of some of the best music we’ve found for old and young, in six arbitrary and subjective categories that I made up while strolling (read: stumbling) through the dark one night, softly singing my boy to sleep. 1. Dan Zanes and Friends CD Baby handles hundreds of artists, featuring most prominently the must-hear, must-own, must-learn and sing-along-to Mr. Dan Zanes. He is the former punk rock genius behind a band called the Del Fuegos, transformed in recent years into a hootenanny ringleader who summons a deceptively rag-tag-seeming ensemble to produce the best, most solid and entertaining kids’ roots music since, yes, troubadour Pete Seeger performed and recorded his sing-a-longs nearly 50 years ago. Zanes’ friends include Lou Reed, Suzanne Vega, and Deborah Harry, though his regular (multi-lingual) band is the heart of his first four records (we like “Rocket Ship Beach”). Go online and buy all of these for your child and grandchild, and then purchase for yourself last year’s amazing tribute to American poet and player Carl Sandburg, “Parades and Panoramas.” Also part of the extended CD Baby lineup is Widdecombe Fair, a traditional folk ensemble doing “Traditional Songs for All Ages,” largely from the British Isles: love songs, ballads, sea shanties, funny songs, including “Molly Malone” and “The Mermaid.” Finally, have a listen to an amazing offering featuring children themselves albeit very talented little belters “Made in America: Vaudeville Songs 1900-1925.” Under the direction of adult musicians and arrangers, the tots do “Danny Boy” and “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” and, my favorite, which turns everybody listening at our house into an instant Al Jolson. “When my Sugar walks down the street, all the little birdies go “tweet tweet tweet.” And in the ev’ning when the sun goes down, it’s never dark when she’s around.” 2. Raffi I was warned away from Raffi by people who I see now lacked souls. Raffi Cavoukian is an extraordinary musician, his songs well-written, well-chosen, eclectic, smart. His song “Baby Beluga” about a “little white whale on the go” has become an anthem of environmental wisdom and empathy. His Caribbean-beat “All I Really Need” reminds everybody of what’s important: “All I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly and love in my family.” Cavoukian has been honored by teachers and education activists, written bestselling advocacy books and a pro-child political manifesto, and even started a foundation. Start with his first album, “Baby Beluga,” and you’ll scream for more. 3. The Woody Guthrie Diaspora The current grown-up reconsideration of the songs, stories and life of the legendary Woody Guthrie by scholars and singers (among them Bruce Springsteen and his pal, my own hero Pete Seeger) has meant lots of new or reissued recordings from artists paying homage to the writer of “This Land is Your Land” and, at least as important to our family, “Let’s Go Ridin’ in the Car,” his most famous song for children. Here follow a few of the best of what I’ll call the Guthrie extended family: The classic: Pete Seeger’s “Folk Songs for Young People.” Seventeen selections sung with clarity and whimsy by a living American tradition. “Songs,” says Pete, “you never heard on the radio…just ordinary songs which one person teaches to another.” Beginning with track one, “Skip to My Lou, ” through “Goodnight, Irene” and “John Henry,” this collection tells a collective story and sings the collective song of America. If you don’t join in, loud and proud, there’s something wrong with you. “Daddy-O-Daddy: Rare Family Songs of Woody Guthrie.” Fine arrangements of songs covered by Taj Mahal (“Don’t You Push Me Down”), Kim Wilson (“New Baby Train”) and Syd Straw, whose version of a brave little World War II-era national defense consciousness song blows me away. “A curly-headed kid with a sunshiny smile heard the roar of the plane as it sailed through the sky. To her playmates she cried with a bright twinkling eye, “My daddy rides that ship in the sky.” Besides “My Daddy,” there are lullabies and potty-training sing-alongs and a scratchy recording of Woody himself reciting a welcome to the new baby of the house. “Woody’s 20 Grow Big Songs.” A collection of more Woody, this time with his son Arlo and other Guthrie kids and grandkids singing along with original recordings. “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanuka.” Why not, already? Arrangements of his celebratory songs by the avant-garde New York klezmer band. Comes with fold-out dredle. “Woodeye The Joel Raphael Band.” A lovely collection by an Oklahoma singer whose gentle voice brings out the subtlety and wisdom of Woody. And we just ordered the follow-up, “Woodyboye: Songs of Woody Guthrie (and Tales Worth Telling) Volume II.” Anything no, everything by Ella Jenkins. Although she’s definitely a sister in the Woody family, Ella Jenkins should really be her own category, but I’ll mention this one-woman education and culture dynamo here. Her long career is documented on her latest release, a celebration of 40 years, “Songs Children Love to Sing” that includes “Miss Mary Mack,” “This Old Man” and, for more holiday fun, “Harmonica for Hanukkah.” Of course, there’s Bob Dylan, the original Woody wannabee. Check out his version of “Froggie Goes a Courtin’,” available on a couple of CDs mentioned below and on “Good As I Been To You,” which also includes “Black Jack Davey,” “Jim Jones” and “Canadee-I-O,” just in time for the 3- or 4-year-old pirate or buccaneer in the car seat. 4. Under the Covers Popular artists, including the two-man rock phenomenon They Might Be Giants, are doing projects of their own or otherwise jumping on the kid music bandwagon. These artists’ own work, or contributions to compilations, will introduce Junior to new songs and keep dad and mom hip. “Here Come the ABCs” is the latest bit of musical nuttiness by the accordian/guitar-playing Giants, whose musical wit shows up in songs as “E Eats Everything.” There’s a DVD, too, in case you need to see that eating occur, and I promise that you do. Snob that I am, I’d never had any reason to listen to Madonna, much less own a CD of her work, but she shows up on a perfectly wonderful collection called “Mary Had a Little Amp.” This preschool education benefit CD offers also features Moby, Indigo Girls and Dixie Chicks, who cover Kermit the Frog’s “The Rainbow Connection.” Less rock and more folky, “Gather Round: Songs for Kids and other Folks” is a solid anthology featuring new versions of familiar songs (Sarah McLachlan does “Rainbow Connection” on this one) to original tunes. I adore Justin Roberts’ “Nine Planets” an astronomy counting/naming song with a catchy melody. Check out Roberts’ other records, including his newest “Way Out.” 5. It’s A Small World Where to start with music of many cultures? Easy: Sweet Honey in the Rock, the six-woman Afro-American a capella ensemble. With albums, DVDs, and as the subject of a brand-new documentary “Raise Your Voice,” this 30-year institution has three records for kids, all of them excellent. “Still the Same Me” is most recent. “I Got Shoes” includes an inspiring rap song called “Young and Positive” and counting songs in English, Japanese, Swahili, for beginners. Their classic first child’s album, “All for Freedom,” offers a heartfelt “Kumbaya” you can play for adults who haven’t heard it lately. They won’t tease anymore about singing it at summer camp, not after singing along with this version. For Spanish language, there’s nobody like Jose-Luis Orozco. He sings “Como estas?” to the tune of “Frere Jacques” and covers Old MacDonald, as well as the cultural signposts like “De Colores” and “Paz Y Libertad.” Language and history lessons for moms and dads, who may be hitting the “repeat” button themselves. Other records include “Es Mi Terra” (in Woody-speak that’s “This Land is My Land”), “Canta De Colores” and “Fiestas.” 6. Show Time! Any musical journey you take depends on where you start from. At our house lately, the “repeat” button takes us down a familiar path, or should I say a Yellow Brick Road, to the MGM musical land of Oz. By the way, check out the recordings by lyricist Yip Harburg doing live those amazing songs at age 80. You may hear anew, as we did, the incredibly punny and clever lyrics of, say, the cowardly lion’s lament to Dorothy: “Yeh, it’s sad, believe me Missy, when you’re born to be a sissy,Without the vim and verve But I could show my prowess, be a lion not a mou-ess If I only had the nerve.” You can see that our music library is embarrassingly messy, or what they call on public radio “eclectic” and, because we listen to a lot of music, our son now refers to performers by first name. My wife is the jazz expert, specializing in vocalists. So besides Ella (Jenkins), there’s the other Ella, as well as Dinah and Billie. I am a folk-punk-Americana-roots-rock-reggae kind of guy, digging Pete and Woody and Bruce and, yes, Raffi, but we both know enough about musical theater to follow along, if not always sing along. In addition to “The Wizard of Oz,” there’s “Mary Poppins” and the required “Sound of Music.” Andrew Tonkovich is an Orange County-based writer and university instructor. On The Radio One final, essential resource is the only noncommercial radio story time hour for kids in Southern California: Uncle Ruthie on KPFK. Ruth Buell, activist, educator, singer and songwriter has hosted Pacifica radio’s “Halfway Down the Stairs” for 25 years, her show’s title taken from a line from the poem by A.A. Milne about a fluffy, stuffy bear I am sure you know well. Uncle Ruthie’s is the hippest, smartest, funniest show anywhere, and helpfully for those parents who eschew the Saturday morning cartoons, airs 8-9 a.m. weekly. It’s worth taping for listening later in the car, over and over. 90.7 FM. Listening during the station’s recent pledge drive, I called up to contribute, receiving “The Best of Uncle Ruthie” CD as a thank you gift. Best of all, Uncle Ruthie herself said hello to us on the radio, and “thanks.” Web of music Websites related to music discussed. Some include free downloads or music samples. www.cdbaby.com www.ellajenkins.com www.joseluisorozco.com www.festivalfive.com www.woodyguthrie.org www.sweethoney.com www.raffinews.com www.justinroberts.org www.klezmatics.com www.kpfk.org |
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