Review: Songs, Stories and Friends 2: Where the Path Will Wind - Charlie Hope

Charlie Hope Where the Path Will Wind album cover

Charlie Hope Where the Path Will Wind album cover

I think highly of Charlie Hope. When you've compared Hope (favorably) with Raffi, you've clearly set a high bar for any artist, right?

So let's drain this review of Hope's latest album, Songs, Stories and Friends 2: Where the Path Will Wind of any tension whatsoever and say that I like it lot, but that your family's enjoyment of it will depend on what you expect from your audio entertainment.

This new album, Hope's fifth, takes a slightly different path (pun unintended, I swear) than her previous album, the delightful Sing As We Go! and instead echoes that album's predecessor, Songs, Stories and Friends: Let's Go Play!.  Unlike the more song-focused Sing, this album throws more stories and friends into the mix, all in service of an overall nature theme.  There are a couple audio games of "I Spy," some spoken word poems, and -- as always -- Hope's mother, who gives "The Three Little Pigs" a far less confrontational telling.

Now I'm always the biggest fan of Hope's voice and songwriting, so my favorite selections on the album are the songs, especially the traditional folk song "Barges," the sweet original "Like an Evergreen," and another original, "If I Were a Bird," which somehow manages to combine both flute and a soaring chorus.  Producer Michael Langford surrounds Hope's lovely-as-ever voice with tasteful arrangements, folk-y but not stuffy.

The 46-minute album will be of most interest to kids ages 2 through 6 -- you can listen to a medley of songs here.

Where the Path Will Wind is essentially an audio magazine, an aural equivalent, perhaps, to her Sing As We Go! video series.  If you're looking for a purely musical experience, therefore, this may not fit those expectations.  But will it engage your favorite preschooler or kindergartener?  You bet.  Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Deep Woods Revival - Red Yarn

Deep Woods Revival album cover

Deep Woods Revival album cover

Long before “kids music” was a category in the record store stacks or iTunes playlists, folk music was the heart of recorded music for kids.  And while folk music remains an integral part of kids music, in the modern kids music world, other genres -- rock, to be sure, but also hip-hop, reggae, and others -- have expanded their influence.

Now, I would argue that that increase in non-folk music in kindie has specifically been one of the major contributors toward the vitality of the genre, but others would also argue that something has been lost when the music that was part of the American culture for generations slips away.

Portland’s Andy Furgeson, a puppeteer and musician who records for families as Red Yarn, doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would rail against shifts in musical tastes.  Rather, he's viewing it as a challenge to be met head-on.  After all, if you title your latest album Deep Woods Revival, by definition you've decided to bring all the energy you can muster to new takes on old classics.

In the case of the traditional song “Buckeye Jim,” for example, it’s a fairly straightforward cover of the version Burl Ives recorded more than a half-century ago with some new lyrics added on.  For another track, “Animal Fair,” Furgeson merges two songs from Carl Sandburg’s famous American Songbag, pulling “The John B. Sails” into the mix.  Those are just two examples -- the entire album draws on a variety of folk music sources -- Alan Lomax, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Spalding’s Encyclopedia of Black Folklore and Humor.

While the first half of the album is described as being for all kids, the liner notes suggests that the second half is for "brave kids and grown-ups."  That half includes songs touching on more serious topics, like death and the not-always benevolent nature of the animal world.  The album’s title track, the only song with entirely new music and lyrics, leads off that half and features a chorus of Portland-area musicians standing in for a forest’s worth of critters great and small having a revival.

I think the album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 10.  (I think the second half might be of more interest to kindergartners and older, but it's not inappropriate for even the younger set.)  You can stream the 36-minute album here.  I'd also note that the physical copy of the album features some lovely artwork (dioramas! maps! illustrations!) made by many people, but most notably Ryan Bruce (art direction and illustrations) and Heather Lin (album design).

Red Yarn’s fervor for American folk music is evident on Deep Woods Revival.  While folk music has never gone away in the children’s music genre, he forcefully makes the case for its continued relevance in the era of the mp3.  Highly recommended.

ote: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.

Video: "Rattlesnake" - Red Yarn

The revival fervor of The Deep Woods, Red Yarn's fabulous debut album, was heard most prominently in its production, which featured a cast of dozens.

So it's not really surprising that there are roughly a dozen puppet animals that make an appearance in Red's (AKA Andy Furgeson's) brand-new video for "Rattlesnake."  Joined by an enthusiastic Furgeson stomping, clapping, and of course singing along, it's very much in the spirit of the rest of the album.  And if the cast of characters puts you in the mind of a TV show, well, the video itself is part of a 22-minute TV pilot or mini-movie which'll get its premiere in December in Portland, Oregon.

Red Yarn - "Rattlesnake" [YouTube]

In Memoriam: Pete Seeger (1919-2014)

Pete_Seeger_NYWTS.jpg

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.