Intro to Kindie: Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell (University of Washington, Smithsonian Folkways)

Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell

It's safe to say that the single biggest label for kids music is Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Oh, sure, perhaps your Disneys and KidzBops might have more in terms of total sales, but for sheer breadth of its offerings made over more than a half-century since Moses Asch founded Folkways Records in 1948 (it was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1987), no other label comes close.

They continue to release kids music regularly -- later this month they release ¡Come Bien! by José-Luis Orozco, the first Smithsonian Folkways release for the longtime bilingual educator.  It's a rich tradition, the Folkways kids music oeuvre, numbering in the hundreds of albums and thousands of tracks.

So I was really hoping that I'd get someone associated with the Smithsonian to pen an entry in my "Intro to Kindie" series, featuring kids music experts listing tracks designed to, well, introduce a listener to kids music, knowing that there would be more than enough to make a list with only Folkways tracks.

And they said yes!

These songs were selected by Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell, who teaches courses in children’s music and “the ethnomusicology of children” at the University of Washington. With a lifetime of singing experience, she has a long experience in sharing songs and singing games with children and their teachers, and is author of Music in Childhood, Songs in Their Heads: Music and Its Meaning in Children’s Lives, Musician and Teacher, and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Musical Cultures. She is also currently the Chair of the Board of Smithsonian Folkways.

In other words, there are few if any people in the world who would know better the breadth of the Folkways collection, especially in kids music, and I'm honored to present her list.

On a related note, one of the biggest thrills I've had in reviewing and discussing kids music is the opportunity to write liner notes for a Smithsonian Folkways release, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Family's Go Waggaloo.  So you can imagine that I was happy when they asked if I'd be interested in writing an entry in their "People's Picks" series talking about favorite Smithsonian Folkways songs at the same time I was asking if they'd be interested in writing something for "Intro to Kindie."  (Great minds, etc. etc.)  So please head over there and read about (and listen to) the 20 great kids music tracks (mostly kids music, anyway) I chose.  (Me! In amongst Valerie June, Jonathan Lethem, Warren Defever, and more!)

Enough about me: on to the list!

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Children are wired to make music, to listen intently to music, and to understand their world through music.  Children’s song-singers know the powerful ways that melodies, rhythms and words can convey messages to children, awaken their imaginations, and inspire them to think, feel, and do.  Children’s own songs are filled with sounds of joy and wonder, even as adult singers express the best of children’s playful selves in the music they sing and play.

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, is a veritable treasury of “people’s music” from everywhere in the world, and the music of, by, and for the little people—children’s music—is a meaningful component of the collection.  This twenty-song playlist samples several generations of singing children and children’s song-singers.  Featured are musical glimpses of legendary musician Woody Guthrie and his granddaughter, Sarah Lee Guthrie, notable “folk-songsters” Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Elizabeth Cotten, and highly acclaimed singers like Ella Jenkins, Suni Paz, Tom Glazer, and Elizabeth Mitchell who have dedicated their lives to singing for and with children.  Several selections feature children themselves in full vocal exuberance, singing to amuse and communicate with friends.

Altogether, these children’s songs represent historic renderings and contemporary expressions at the core of a vast collection of musical traditions collected, preserved, and readily available onsite of the vast and varied archive of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

1. “Little Bird, Little Bird” by Elizabeth Mitchell from You Are My Little Bird (2006)

2. “Go Waggaloo” by Sarah Lee Guthrie & Family from Go Waggaloo (2009)

3. “On Top of Spaghetti” by Tom Glazer from Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGGGGG and Other Children's Favorites (2008)

4. “Bought Me a Cat” by Pete Seeger from American Folk, Game and Activity Songs (2000)

5. “Did You Feed My Cow?” by Ella Jenkins from You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song (1992)

6. “Freight Train” by Elizabeth Cotten from Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes (1989)

7. “Why, Oh Why?” by Woody Guthrie from Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child (1991)

8. “Jambo” by Ella Jenkins from Jambo and Other Call and Response Songs and Chants (1996)

9. “Matarile” by Suni Paz from Alerta Sings and Songs for the Playground/ Canciones Para el Recreo (2000)

10. “Grey Goose” by Lead Belly from Lead Belly Sings for Children (1999)

11. “Camp Songs” by Tony Schwartz from 1, 2, 3 and a Zing Zing Zing (1953)

12. “Loop de Loo” by Lilly’s Chapel School (Ala.) from Ring Games: Line Games and Play Party Songs of Alabama (1953)

13. “Shoo Lie Loo” by Elizabeth Mitchell from Sunny Day (2010)

14. “Go In and Out the Window” by Jean Ritchie from Children's Songs and Games from the Southern Mountains (1957)

15. “Little Liza Jane” by Elizabeth Mitchell from You Are My Little Bird (2006)

16. “¡Que llueva! (Let it rain!)”by Suni Paz from Alerta Sings and Songs for the Playground/ Canciones Para el Recreo (2000)

17. “Jump Rope” by Tony Schwartz from 1, 2, 3 and a Zing Zing Zing (1953)

18. “All Around the Kitchen” by Pete Seeger from American Folk, Game and Activity Songs (2000)

19. “Charlie Over the Ocean” by East York School (Ala.) from Ring Games: Line Games and Play Party Songs of Alabama (1953)

20. “Golden Kids’ Rules” by Chip Taylor & The Grandkids from Golden Kids Rules (2011)

Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell playing with children in Singapore

Itty-Bitty Review: 123s and ABCs - Ella Jenkins

Let's begin as we must always begin when talking about Ella Jenkins -- she is a legend.  The Chicago-based musician released her first album for Folkways Records (later Smithsonian Folkways) in 1957, and she's recorded for Folkways ever since.  Jenkins turns 90 years old later this year, but she's still playing live around the country.

This latest album follows up on 2013's Get Moving with Ella Jenkins with another collection of previously-released material.  As you might guess from the album title, this album features songs about counting and the alphabet, presented with empathy and without a trace of irony and hipness.  That's not a putdown -- one of the great joys of listening to and watching Jenkins perform live and on record is hearing and seeing how in sync she is with her audience.  She's not playing to the adults in the back of the room -- she's playing to the kids in the front.  (She wants to get the adults involved, too, but that's usually not at issue on recordings.)  She's leading and teaching them, and the kids adore her for it.  Once your kids have already mastered their letters and numbers, they probably won't want to listen, and you might not want to listen to the album on repeat regardless, but again, it's not for you.

You can listen 3 tracks from the 31-minute album here.  Recommended if you've got preschoolers, and as always, if you yourself sing to preschoolers on a regular basis, regardless of whether you're in a classroom setting or not.

In Memoriam: Pete Seeger (1919-2014)

Pete Seeger, the American folksinger whose clear voice entertained and inspired millions, died on Monday night at the age of 94.  Seeger's grandson, Kitama Cahill-Jackson, reported that he died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

I cannot hope to write an appropriate tribute to Seeger, a man with a tremendously long career who made many, many friends and lived his life with a sense of dignity and principle that I could only hope to live up to.  And, reading the obituaries that have been published since last night, most of them touch upon his work making music for families only briefly.

But with Seeger, distinctions between "kids music" and whatever you want to call music that wasn't "kids music" didn't exist.  He sang for audiences of all ages drawing upon the deep well of folk music of America and around the world.  His viewed his folk music as a way of communicating his ideals of community -- and if you were going to sing of a world where everyone was pulling with the same oar -- why wouldn't you want to reach the kids in addition to his parents?

Seeger was a prolific recording musician -- he recorded 38 albums for Folkways just between 1950 and 1964, for example.  He one one Grammy for his children's music, for 2010's Tomorrow's Children, but that was not his best work.  And while his Smithsonian Folkways work is essential, if I had to pick just one Pete Seeger family album to recommend to you, it would be his 1963 album for Columbia, Children's Concert at Town Hall (affiliate link). It's Pete at the prime of his career, a fine banjo player and his amazing voice (THAT VOICE!), all in service of bring an entire audience together in song.  It's joyous, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone of any age.

It is not hyperbole to say that without Seeger we wouldn't quite have "kindie" as we do today.  Set aside the artists such as Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell whose debts to Seeger are much more obvious and you'd still have countless others in genres often far afield from folk who carry on the idea that music can and often should be made for listeners of all ages.  We've lost a powerful voice with Pete's passing, but I think he'd expect us to pick up the melody and pass it along.

Video: "Sing Hallelu" - Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower

As part of the promotion for Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower's wonderful holiday album The Sounding Joy, Smithsonian Folkways has released a number of very well-done videos featuring Mitchell and her many friends singing tracks off the album live in a handful of different New York locales, including "Baby Born Today," "January, February (Last Month of the Year)," and "Cradle Hymn."

My choice for this Christmas Eve night, however, is "Sing Hallelu," which features just Mitchell, her husband Daniel Littleton, and harpist Elizabeth Clark-Jerez.  I like the quiet.  Merry Christmas, everyone.

Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower - "Sing Hallelu" [YouTube]

Review: The Sounding Joy - Elizabeth Mitchell and Friends

For all her Velvet Underground and Allman Brothers covers, Elizabeth Mitchell's most intense obsession on her albums for families to my mind has been with Ruth Crawford Seeger.  Her first two (pre-Smithsonian Folkways) family albums drew from many folk music wells, but starting with You Are My Little Bird, in which she specifically cites Seeger's 1948 book American Folk Songs for Children as a resource, and on through Sunny Day and Blue Clouds she returns to praise the composer and musicologist's arrangements of the American folk songs.

On her latest album for Smithsonian Folkways, the Christmas-themed The Sounding Joy, Mitchell and her family and friends, dives deeply into Ruth Crawford Seeger's final songbook, her 1953 book American Folk Songs for Christmas.  A sizable majority of the album's 24 songs come from Seeger's books and even many of the arrangements for which Mitchell and husband Daniel Littleton claim credit are noted as inspired by Seeger's songbook.

If the music of Ruth Crawford Seeger has been Mitchell's obsession, the guiding principle of her Smithsonian Folkways has been that she wants to rope 21st century communities into the grand folk music (in the broadest sense of that phrase) tradition -- a principle that Seeger would have endorsed whole-heartedly.  Her circles of influence ripple ever further outward -- on this album, I count 37 musicians in total.  She of course relies on Littleton and their daughter Storey, but on many others, including Natalie Merchant, John Sebastian, fellow community-roper Dan Zanes, Aoife O'Donovan, and Joan Osborne.  Amidst these celebrated musicians, the most impressive guest is Peggy Seeger, one of Ruth Crawford Seeger's daughters, who takes the melody on two tracks.   Could Folkways have picked an artist more interested in furthering their own aims than Elizabeth Mitchell?  I highly doubt it.  

And while I'm talking about Elizabeth Mitchell's obsessions and guiding principles, why not also suggest a undercurrent in her work, that of belief and faith?  Though the number of religiously-inspired tracks on her albums ("This Little Light of Mine," "Peace Like a River," and her glorious take on "Jubilee") can be counted on one hand and have not explicitly referenced God or other higher beings, Mitchell's tracks come closer to addressing the divine in everyday life than any other non-religious kids' musician.  And now she's got an entire album devoted to Christmas, one of Christianity's two most important holidays.

This is not a secular Christmas album -- this is a Christmas album that is very much tied to the story of Mary giving birth to Jesus.  Which isn't to say that it's praise music or even completely Christian, either.  While I like the liner notes by Mitchell and Natalie Merchant (not to mention Mitchell's song notes), I think the most gracious notes are by Daniel Littleton, who celebrates Seeger's melding of these many different birth narratives with several tracks about the stars and solstice.  They may not come from the same Christian tradition, but songs like "Oh, Watch the Stars" fit comfortably within the context of a birth on a cold winter's night many, many years ago.  Listeners from a non-Christian tradition may be able to appreciate the music itself, and the stories, but I think the album will feel most comfortable to those who grew up in that tradition (regardless of whether they still reside within).  Having said that, the songs aren't super familiar to modern ears -- Christmas Eve warhorses (warhorses I love, incidentally) like "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night" are definitely in the minority here.  This album will stretch the musical knowledge of all but the most educated musicologist.

As for the music itself, the throughout arrangements are lovely but in many cases fairly simple, accessible to people with far fewer musical accolades.  In some places it's as if we've been dropped into a campfire song group - handclaps and percussion, such as those that dominate on the opener, "Oh, Mary and the Baby, Sweet Lamb."  Elsewhere (see "Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow"), Mitchell and Littleton seem to channel the Alison Krauss Christmas she inexplicably has not yet recorded.  It's sometimes bluesy, sometimes soulful, and almost always reverent, though with a gentle touch.  The performances are all lovely -- I'll only single out one, and that's Mitchell's performance with daughter Storey on "Joy to the World," which I love if only because as Mitchell says in her song notes, based on her youth, she "always sung the harmony! So [she] asked [her] daughter Storey to join me."  The voices blend together very well, and it's that sort of careful planning mixed with serendipitous good luck that runs through the album.

This album isn't a family music album, it's a Christmas album, and so the age range I normally put on my reviews doesn't apply here.  There are certainly holiday albums that are targeted specifically at kids -- this is not one of them.  And while right now you can get the 70-minute album on mp3 at Amazon for just $5.99, if physical copies mean anything to you, you should get the physical copy of this album.  The album packaging is stunning.  Also, while I had to get my copy of American Folk Songs for Christmas used as it was out of print this summer, it's back in print once again. (Note: that's an affiliate link.)

In thinking about this review, I came to the conclusion that if I had to reduce the world into two types of people, it would be those who listen to Christmas songs and those who sing them.  Though it has its own sonic beauty, The Sounding Joy is more for the latter.  The communal experience of singing in celebration is honored here, somewhat hushed, always joyful.  Highly recommended -- may it repeat often.

Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review.

Video: "Froggy Went a Courtin'" - Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower

I've never been a huge fan of the song "Froggy Went a Courtin'," if only because it just seems so linear -- this happens, then this happens, then this happens -- in nature.  But Elizabeth Mitchell is a cover artist par extraordinaire, and on her latest album Blue Clouds she and You Are My Flower turn the centuries-old song into lovely song you could envision hearing at a wedding -- amphibian or otherwise.

So it's probably appropriate that the video is set at a (non-amphibian) wedding, with a few simple animations mixed in.  Who wouldn't want Elizabeth Mitchell playing at their wedding?  Lovely all around.(Source: Goodyblog)

Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower - "Froggy Went a Courtin'" [YouTube]