Intro to Kindie: Laurie Berkner

In my Intro to Kindie series, I've focused thus far on people who've had the opportunity to listen to thousands (if not tens of thousands) of kids music songs to try to select the twenty or so songs that would serve as a good introduction to kids music for the 21st century listener.

That's meant that my respondents thus far (and in the future) have not been musicians, but radio folks and others who've made it their job or hobby to listen to 250 or more albums per year.

But there are a handful of musicians I'm planning to feature here, musicians whose appreciation of the history and modern context of kids music rivals (or supersedes) that of folks like me.

Laurie Berkner's Favorite Classic Kids' Songs album cover

So I'm tickled pink to have kids music superstar Laurie Berkner be the first musician to offer her own list of twenty songs to introduce to the kids' music newbie. Berkner's on a roll at the momeny -- just this week, for example, Simon & Schuster announced that they'd be publishing three picture books in 2017 and 2018 -- but most importantly for the purposes of this particular exercise, her latest album, Laurie Berkner's Favorite Classic Kids' Songs, is set for release next week. It's a 2-CD, 57-track (!) set that features 51 traditional children's songs plus six "bonus" tracks of Berkner's own songs that could easily join those traditional songs.

I love all these lists, and Berkner's is no exception, with a wonderful introduction kicking things off.

For me, the songs that really represent an artist or a genre are the ones that move me. They might make my body move, move me to laughter or move me to tears, but they affect me deeply in some way. All of the songs that I've chosen as an introduction to kids' music have some element that I think is moving, as well as being representative of the ever-expanding world of kids' music. Some of these songs are for very young children, some are for kids already in school, some are more for the parents, but to me most of them have a lovely sense of something joyful or beautiful, and often it's from the child's perspective.

It goes without saying that there are now so many wonderful musicians making great music for families that it would have been impossible to put them all on this list. Instead I just tried to include a sampling of music more recently written along with music that has stood the test of time. "Sammy" by Hap Palmer is an exquisitely written song that made me cry as a kid, with a message that I still appreciate as an adult. "I am a Paleontologist" is only one amazing song of many by They Might Be Giants. I happen to think this one is genius in the way it combines content that is truly of interest to kids with a super catchy chorus and a sound that hints enough at crunchy guitar rock to tickle parents.

Brady Rymer's "Jump Up (It's a Good Day)" is a song that really moves me to jump and just makes me feel happy every time I hear it. I only included one song from a musical because I think that music is easier to discover without much research, but I think that many amazing kids' songs come from that genre (I could do an entire list made up of songs exclusively performed by Julie Andrews). I also couldn't help myself, but as a bonus 21st track, I included Paul Simon's "St. Judy's Comet" because even though he didn't put it on a kids' album, Simon wrote it for his own son. I sang it to my daughter for years, and I think it's one of those songs that takes on deep meaning only once you become a parent.

Here are my 20 (OK, 21) bits of kids' music pleasure, in no particular order. Enjoy!

"Jump Up (It's a Good Day)" - Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could

"Roller Coaster" - Kira Willey

"Pop Fly"- Justin Roberts

"Spoonful of Sugar" - from Mary Poppins

"I am a Paleontologist" - They Might Be Giants (with Danny Weinkauf)

"Family Time" - Ziggy Marley

"Daddy-O" - Frances England

"Sammy" - Hap Palmer

"Glad To Have A Friend Like You" - Free To Be You And Me/Marlo Thomas and Friends

"Go Down Emmanuel Road" - Dan Zanes

"Good Morning My Love" - Vered

"The Garden Song" - Arlo Guthrie

"Upside Down" - Jack Johnson

"John The Rabbit" - Elizabeth Mitchell

"All These Shapes" - The Pop-Ups

"Music Everywhere" - The Dirty Sock Funtime Band

"Fly Birdy Fly" - Choo Choo Soul

"Walking With Spring" - The Okee Dokee Brothers

"The Marvelous Toy" - Tom Paxton

"Suppertime" - The Verve Pipe

"St. Judy's Comet" - Paul Simon

Photo credit: Jayme Thornton

Itty-Bitty Review: Put Our Heads Together - Hot Peas 'N Butter

Hot Peas 'N Butter - Put Our Heads Together album cover

For about a decade now, the New York-based group Hot Peas 'N Butter have turned out a half-dozen albums of original music most distinctively characterized by a blend of sounds that I'd describe as global in nature.

Their latest album, Put Our Heads Together -- their seventh -- continues in that vein, lending a sound to kids music that is still somewhat unique. While many other artists tackle a range of styles on a single album, and a handful like Dan Zanes or Mista Cookie Jar or Secret Agent 23 Skidoo will sometimes mix disparate styles on a single song, Danny Lapidus and his band really do blend Latin rhythm, bilingual lyrics, and modern global pop sounds together to create a bright sound.

This new album features uplifting, feel-good lyrics to go along with those bright sounds. Tracks like album opener "Amistad," a duet with Dan Zanes, feature lyrics in Spanish and English that neatly illustrate the theme of friendship (which is what "Amistad" means in Spanish). "Magic Elevator" weaves in an elevator "door-opening" sound into its story of a globe-trotting elevator. "Colores" is another winning pop song. And it's one of the better kids' albums at incorporating a kids' chorus with out getting too Kidz Bop-py. I didn't think the album worked as well, though, when the lyrics were too on the nose -- "No Bullies" is too didactic for my tastes, and "Fresh Spokes" jams bike safety tips into a perfectly good song about the diversity of experience.

The 41-minute album will be most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 10. Lapidus and crew write an effective pop song with a distinctive sound that's still somewhat rare in the kindie scene. Put Our Heads Together isn't perfect, but there are enough tracks with a fresh, positive sound -- the majority of them, really -- to merit a spin. Recommended.

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

Video: "Thank You" - Vered

Vered's latest album Hello My Baby was an interesting album in that it featured songs that were both incredibly sweet and tender about the interaction of between mother and child as well as surprisingly raw about the emotional ups and downs of being a caregiver to a young child.

Her first video from the album, for the song "Thank You," resides in the former camp. It's a simple video for a simple song, and if you (and your child) learn nothing more than the sign language for please and thank you, then the video's done its job.

Vered - "Thank You" [YouTube]

Itty-Bitty Review: Hello My Baby - Vered

A good part of Vered's second album, Hello My Baby (subtitled Songs to Bond You and Your Baby) doesn't sound much different from its predecessor, her debut album Good Morning My Love. The folk-pop songs are very tightly arranged, with Vered's lyrics often requiring her to sing, or almost rap, them quickly (see, for example, "Gotta Go"). And like its predecessor, the subjects and lyrics for most of the songs are designed to, well, bond parent and baby, so the song helps explain the child's perspective to the parent, and/or gently remind the parent the consequences of actions like being on the phone too much ("Phone").

If there's a big change from the first album, it's in the songs that speak much more directly to the parents. "More of a Baby" is a duet with the Okee Dokee Brothers' Justin Lansing that recognizes the value of a baby's attitude toward the world. "Something Other Than a Mom" reflects the voice of a mother trying to take back some of that personal identity she had before becoming a mom. With a cello helping to underscore the frustration and sadness that can be mixed into life as a parent, it's rawness one doesn't hear often in kids music; rawness about parenting just isn't heard much in music, period. And if that track is wistful, the album closer "All I Want" features the year's most memorable kindie chorus, with a handful of kindie musicians (album producer Dean Jones, Joanie Leeds, Rachel Loshak, Jon Samson, and more) singing "All I Want / is to sleep / seven hours straight / all I want / is to sleep." Compared to most of the other tracks, this song is loose, letting all the emotion flow and spill out.

The album is most appropriate, as you might expect, for kids ages 1 through 5 and their new parents, natch. (You can listen to samples of the 43-minute album -- soon -- here.) To the extent that Vered sought to create an emotional dialogue between parents and their infants and toddlers, Hello My Baby succeeds. For those parents, it's definitely recommended.

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

Video: "Too Much Junk" - Elska (World Premiere!)

Woohoo, new music from Elska! And a sparkly new video to go along with it.

It's been more than a couple of years since the release of Middle of Nowhere, the singular debut album from Shelley Wollert's Icelandic-inspired electronica-kid-pop, and since that time Wollert and long-time collaborator Allen Farmelo have been exploring new musical avenues and themes, including via a residency at The New Victory Theater's Lab Works Artist Residency.

Wollert also's been collaborating with others, including Mikael Jorgensen, who's probably best known as the lead pianist and keyboardist for a little band you may have heard of called Wilco.

Wollert went to Jorgensen's Brooklyn studio and over the course of a day filled out this song, "Too Much Junk," with bubbling arpeggios and other sounds. Jorgensen recalled (humorously) that "There was a point where Shelley stopped me and, very gently, let me know that her songs were about half the length of what I was making. From there we narrowed, and it was really great to work on such a tight production." (No "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," evidently.)

Beyond the song itself, whose themes of reducing reliance on, and obsession with, manmade itself ("plastic stuff") and relationship with nature Wollert says are reflected in her next full-length release, the video features more scenic visuals from Iceland as well as romps through a snow-covered Christmas tree farm in New York's Hudson Valley.

OK, enough of my talking. I'm tickled to offer the world-premiere video for "Too Much Junk." Enjoy! (And if you want to grab the song for very own, head here for purchasing links.)

Elska feat. Mikael Jorgensen - "Too Much Junk" [YouTube]

Photo credits: Christopher Vetur (2015).

Review: Animal Tales - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke

I think Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke are pretty awesome. From the very first time Wilde e-mailed me a link to some music that would eventually become their 2010 debut Rise and Shine, I've shouted their praises.

Of course, the New York-area duo have been slow, almost agonizingly so, in releasing music into the world. That 2010 album appeared three years after Wilde first posted his music, and since then they've just released one other full-length, the outstanding Pleased To Meet You, and a Christmas-themed EP.

High expectations plus long waiting period equals for me a recipe for potential disappointment with Animal Tales, the fall 2014 album from the duo. So if I say this is my least favorite KWMC album, you shouldn't interpret that as "it's a bad album." On the contrary - Animal Tales is very good. As you might expect from the album title and cover art, it's a themed album, a baker's dozen of songs about animals with varying amounts of lyrical similitude. "Bear Song" is a straightforward recitation of the different kinds of bears, while "Armando Armadillo" is a little more fanciful, a song that echoes traditional Mexican music and which gives the title character a wife, a dozen kids (all named), and a job (gardener at a nursery). The record's most abstract and least "factual" songs, which close out the album -- the instrumental "Hippo Dance" and the parable "Animal Island" -- are my favorites.

When I try to pinpoint why I didn't react quite as strongly to this album as I have their other work, the best explanation I can come up with is that it's definitely less raucous than their previous albums, with no rave-up song like "Favorite Names," "The Rattling Can," or "Bigga Bagga" in the mix. It's unfair, I know, to complain that this album is more Johnny Cash than Johnny Rotten just because our family (not just me) has found the punk side of KWMC the side that's stuck in our brains most often.

The album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 9. You can listen to the 39-minute album here. And while the album packaging isn't as elaborate on their debut, that cover art from Wilde himself is again another argument for physical copies of music (or, perhaps, a vinyl-sized mp3 player/smartphone for listeners to explore the illustration).

Would I recommend Animal Tales as the entry point to Key Wilde and Mr. Clarke to a family unfamiliar with them? No, but that's only because the other two albums have wiggled their way into our families' consciousness so much and because this album gives the punk side of the duo short shrift. But would I recommend Animal Tales? Heck yeah. Definitely recommended.

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