It's final first round day of KidVid Tournament 2011 action. The last regional host is Bill Childs at the venerable Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child radio show. He's hosting two matchups for the Pete Seeger Regional:
-- Keller Williams, "Hula Hoop to Da Loop" (1) vs. Justin Roberts, "Obsessed by Trucks" (4) [vote here]
-- Recess Monkey, "Black Hole in My Room" (2) vs. Jamie Broza, "Waters of March" (3) [vote here]
Vote today, and if you need a second (or first, or seventh) opinion, Jeff Giles over at Dadnabbit is providing commentary on the whole bracket. Read his take on today's matchups here.
Review: "Kids" - Keller Williams
Upon first report, Keller Williams' eagerly anticipated debut album for kids seems to reveal a paucity of imagination. A kids album titled Kids. Really? Can't we get something with a little more creativity from someone dipping their toes into the family music pond?
But then you inspect the thing, and listen to it, and those frustrations melt away. The cover is a good indication of the humor tucked away inside. The "Kids," of course, are those cute-as-a-button... goats, a theme carried through to Williams' kids' website. That sly humor carries through to the music itself, such as on "Mama Tooted." ("It was one of [us] three," sings the narrator to his child, "I'm going to tell you who / It was Mama / Mama tooted / She may say that she did not and she is probably right / but I am going to blame it on Mama.") I particularly liked the gleeful way Williams leads a chorus in singing parts of "Good Advice" in Chinese. Many of the song lyrics include a somewhat exasperated parental narrator, which should definitely help rope in the adults in the audience. And animal husbandry isn't generally a kindie topic, but there it is (obliquely) in "My Neighbor is Happy Again."
As for the music itself, Williams noted in an interview here that Jerry Garcia and David Grisman's Not For Kids Only, an album of folk and bluegrass tunes for families, was a particular inspiration. You can definitely hear that on songs like "Grandma's Feather Bed" (written by Jim Connor a number of years ago) and Williams' own "Lucy Lawcy" and "Taking a Bath." But whereas that earlier album has a gentle vibe almost to the point of dozing off, Williams' mixture of more modern sounds, such as with the tape-looping on "Hula Hoop to da Loop" and "Soakie Von Soakerman," keeps the listener more engaged.
Kids ages 3 through 7 will most enjoy the album, which you can hear samples of here. Kids is an album that could've been made for all the wrong reasons, but was definitely made for all the right ones -- music-making with family, retaining a sense of playfulness, not giving up the musical skills that drew fans to Keller Williams in the first place. It's a solid album, and families with a sense of humor will find much to groove to here. Recommended.
Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review. I also world-premiered a track off the album.
Interview: Keller Williams
Virginia musician Keller Williams has a couple feet's worth of toes in a wide variety of musical ponds -- bluegrass, jamband, jazz, folk, to name a few -- and he's just added family music to that list with the release of Kids. Williams chatted by phone last month about Hee Haw, the unplanned appearance of his daughter on the new album, and the relative merits of being a musician versus doing temporary construction work.
Zooglobble: What are your musical memories growing up?
Keller Williams: There are many... the first real musical memory was watching Hee Haw. You know, I get asked that by college papers and I tell them that and they've never heard of it.
Really?
Yeah... Twenty-something, it's frustrating trying to explain to them, it had Buck Owens, Roy Clark...
Anyway, by the age of 3, I'd convinced my parents to buy me a guitar. Then it was Kiss -- I used a hockey stick in lieu of an electric guitar. I remember listening to 8-track tapes of John Denver, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, Willie Nelson, driving around with my parents.
I sang in church choir, the Fredricksburg Children's Theatre, high school choir, but by tenth grade, when I was 15 or 16, I was playing guitar a lot. I got paid for the first time at age 17, playing in the backyard of a restaurant.
When did you decide you wanted to make music for a living?
When I tried to get jobs when I was 15, 16, 17 years old. The minimum wage was $3.50. I did a little temporary construction work where I mostly would sweep or scrape mortar out of cinder block cracks for 40 hours a week. I realized that I could get a day's pay for 3 hours work, sit while I was doing it, and maybe even get a date out of it.
What led you to making this album for families, Kids?
Video: "Hula Hoop to Da Loop" - Keller Williams
Enjoying listening to "Hula Hoop to Da Loop" from the forthcoming Keller Williams album Kids? Of course you are. But maybe you're more of a visually-stimulated family. Then check out this video, featuring Williams, a display of his looping prowess, and a display of his (and others') hula-hooping prowess. Fun.
Listen To This: "Hula Hoop to Da Loop" - Keller Williams (World Premiere)
Keller Williams is releasing his new album for families, Kids, on October 26 and, courtesy of Williams, I'm happy to offer a world premiere of one of those songs, "Hula Hoop to Da Loop," right here. Your kids don't have to be expert hula hoopers, nor do they have to be experts in looping technology, to enjoy and groove to the song streaming below. (And don't forget to check out all the other Williams songs streaming this weekend, which Gwyneth kicked off yesterday.)
Share: "Car Seat" - Keller Williams
"Car Seat" is one of the few tracks off Keller Williams' upcoming family album Kids that isn't getting radio airplay this weekend. But that's OK, Williams has got you covered -- grab the track for the price of an e-mail using the handy Topspin widget below... (For those of you convinced already, Williams has a pre-order contest going on with some more unusual prizes...)