A Decade of All Kindie Things Considered

Exactly ten years ago today, I had what was at the time a very weird experience -- I heard my voice on the radio. That's because my voice was hitting the airwaves as part of an interview with Melissa Block about kids music on NPR's All Things Considered. Over the course of five minutes, Block and I chatted about Dan Zanes, Brady Rymer, Laurie Berkner, and Justin Roberts, my kids, a philosophy of kids music, with a slight diss of the Beatles -- a band I really like! -- thrown in for good measure.

The whole process actually started a couple weeks before when I received an e-mail from Block herself asking for some more information about me. Fast forward a couple weeks, and after some discussions with Block and an NPR producer -- no doubt to make sure that I had something to say and could say it without sounding like an idiot -- I went to a local studio (not my NPR affiliate) and chatted about the various albums. I have no memory of how long the conversation went -- I'm sure it wasn't for much more than 30 minutes -- but the next day I got an e-mail saying that they'd edited the piece together and it would be airing later that afternoon.

I don't remember if I had an actual "driveway moment" listening to that piece, I don't even remember where I heard that piece (in the car, maybe, or at home). But I'm guessing that the piece generated quite a few driveway moments across the country, because eight months later, I found myself back on the air, talking about some more kids music. Three more times, Block and I chatted, and then starting in 2009, I started writing and recording honest-to-goodness reviews. My first NPR kids music review was for Lunch Money's Dizzy in 2009, and it remains one of my most favorite pieces of audio I created for ATC.

Since that review, I've done 20 more kids music pieces for ATC, featuring 24 albums. (Oh, and a commentary on the sound of a lawnmower. Yeah, I know!) It has been an absolute blast writing, editing, and recording these reviews, and working with the amazing folks at NPR who, if they've ever been frustrated with my written product or slow starts in warming up my voice ("a little more Shatner"), never mentioned it to me. I learned quite a bit about writing and editing for radio. And of course it's been a thrill to be able to bring serious (and fun) consideration of an oft-maligned musical genre to a broad national audience.

Having said all that, the worlds of public radio, of music consumption, of music promotion -- these have all changed significantly over the past decade. People can argue about the value of criticism, but it is hard to argue that the perceived value of criticism has faded over the past ten years. All Things Considered has not been immune to those changes, either, and the amount of reviews they've run from any genre of music, particularly over the past six months, has dropped dramatically. I do not think that will change significantly in the future, and so I'm not sure when I'll next appear on All Things Considered. (If I do, I'm not sure it'll be in the standard 3:30-ish review format I've honed over the past 6-7 years.)

I would be sad about that possibility, were it not for the fact that the past decade has just been so damn fun. I've never ever taken for granted the gift I was given with a short e-mail from an NPR host titled "Who are you?" a decade ago. So I just think it's an appropriate time for me to say "thanks" to everyone at NPR who have let me share that gift with all the wonderful musicians I got to talk about. I hope this piece on Jazzy Ash's Bon Voyage isn't the last piece I record or write for NPR, but if it is, I'd be cool with that.

Ten Great Spanish-Language Kids Music Albums

Earlier this week, the 16th Annual Latin Grammys were awarded, and the Children's category featured 3 familiar names to fans of kindie (and Zooglobble): Mister G, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, and 123 Andrés. (The winner this time around was Mister G for Los Animales; Diaz won a couple years ago for ¡Fantástico!.)

Concurrently, as I wrote recently in my review of Sonia De Los Santos' latest album, I think we're in a third wave of Spanish kids music. And I believe that because this new wave has a broad range of musical sounds and is made for entertainment rather than explicitly educational (read: language-learning) reasons, it's likely to stick.

So I thought it was an appropriate time for me to produce a list I've been pondering for awhile, and that's this list of ten great Spanish-language kids music albums.

I'll be the first to admit that the relative paucity on this list of albums released before 2000 is a weakness of this list, but there are no weak albums here -- they are either essential albums from a historical or classroom setting, or they are lots of fun regardless of whether Spanish is your first, second, or sixth language.

I'll also say that this list was harder to compile than I initially thought it might be, not because I struggled to find ten albums to be on the list, but because I had to cut some albums that I initially thought would make it due to sheer numbers. But it's folks like Andrés Salguero and Mariana Iranzi, for example, whom I expect to continue to make quality music along with the rest of these artists.

It's a good time to listen to kids music sung in Spanish -- here are ten albums, ordered chronologically, to let you dive in.

ALERTA Sings / Songs for the Playground cover

Artist: Suni Paz

Album: ALERTA Sings & Songs for the Playground (2000 on CD; the two albums date to 1980 and 1977, respectively)

Description: 44 traditional nursery rhyme and playground songs, with some folk songs as well, sung by perhaps the best-known bilingual Spanish-language (female) kids' musician. (Paz has a number of albums for adults as well.) Released on Smithsonian Folkways. Features a handful of songs in English to go along with the primarily Spanish-language songs. Many songs for preschoolers, but also older

Artist: José-Luis Orozco

Album: De Colores and Other Latin American Folk Songs (2003 on CD, though it dates back to the '90s at least)

Description: 27 traditional folks songs for children, sung by perhaps the best-known bilingual Spanish-language (male) kids' musician. Looking for an album to learn songs for use in a (preschool) classroom setting? Start here.

Putumayo Kids - Brazilian Playground album cover

Artist (Label): Putumayo Kids

Album: Brazilian Playground (2007, tweaked and re-released in 2012)

Description: Putumayo has of course built its business on bringing songs from around the world to the English-speaking part of the world. This album is particularly dance-y. It's not necessarily "kindie," but it's a lot of fun. Oddly enough, even though the album got a second release, it's now out-of-print. Latin Playground, which draws from a broader range of countries, is an acceptable (in-print) substitute. [Review]

Artist: Dan Zanes

Album: ¡Nueva York! (2008)

Description: Probably the first "kindie" Spanish-language album, almost entirely in Spanish, but with an undeniably Zanes-ian roots-rock spin. It's not quite a "Dan Zanes" album -- it's missing some of the goofiness interwoven through his best work -- but it's generous and open in sharing the stage (or recording studio) with many wonderful artists and songs. [Review]

Artist: Baby Loves Salsa

Album: Salsa for Kittens & Puppies (2008)

Description: Part of the "Baby Loves..." series, which started with disco and then (briefly) branched into a series of different genres. This one is produced by Grammy winner Aaron "Luis" Levinson and features a host of all-star players, including Jose Conde on vocals. The lyrical content (mostly Spanish) is for preschoolers (it is "Baby Loves..." after all), but the music will appeal to a broader range.

Artist (Label): Minimusica

Album: Los Animales / Els Animals (2012)

Description: There is plenty of traditional Spanish-language folk music and instrumentation on this list, but this compilation was the first album that really changed my notion of what Spanish-language kids music could be -- it's basically indie rock for kids in Spanish, made for Spanish kids. Subsequent albums (Stateside) took a similar approach, but this is my favorite from Minimusica's four such collections. [Review]

Artist: Moona Luna

Album: Vamos, Let’s Go! (2013)

Description: Sandra Velasquez's band for kids can sometimes feel like it has an "educational" bent in that its lyrics are simple, often mimicking the English in its Spanish verses and vice versa. But she has a sharp ear for hooks, and this particular album, which uses the sounds of late '50s and early '60s rock and roll, has a unique sound not duplicated elsewhere on this list. Definitely one of my favorite bilingual artists. [Review]

Artist: Mister G

Album: Los Animales (2015)

Description: As the Massachusetts-based Mister G has recorded more albums in Spanish and English, his songs have become pared down more to their bare essentials. This album focuses on animals and is focused on preschoolers, but he brings in a number of top-notch musicians to give the songs a rich folk-rock texture with Latin accents. [Review]

Artist: Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

Album: Adelante (2015)

Description: Diaz is another artist who is pushing the boundaries of what Spanish-language kids' music can sound like. This is a big, poppy bilingual record with a foot planted in English-language pop-rock and the other foot planted in more traditional Spanish sounds. If there's an album on this list that will challenge preconceptions of what Spanish-language kids music made in America can sound like, this is it. [Review]

Mi Viaje: De Nuevo Leon to the New York Island album cover

Artist: Sonia De Los Santos

Album: Mi Viaje: De Nuevo León To the New York Island (2015)

Description: I think it's appropriate that one of the artists featured by Dan Zanes on his ¡Nueva York! album gets a spot of her own. It takes a very broad view of Spanish-language music, covering songs from either side of the Atlantic Ocean and recounting, in a manner of speaking, her own journey from Mexico to New York City. Ecumenical in its musical approach, from traditional instrumentation to Dan Zanes roots-rock. [Review]

Review: Mi Viaje: De Nuevo Leon to the New York Island - Sonia De Los Santos

Sonia De Los Santos - Mi Viaje: De Nuevo Leon to the New York Island album cover

We are in at least the third wave of Spanish-language kids music. The first wave was a narrow but very deep wave, for the most part consisting of Jose-Luis Orozco and Suni Paz, who each have been making music and releasing records for roughly forty years. (They're still doing so.)

The two of them (separately) made their folk music, often with little more than their voices and guitars, but in the late 2000s, the second wave swept through. This second wave was considerably broader, but also far more shallow. This was because most of the music was designed with the idea of teaching Spanish to English speakers in mind. This led to literally dozens of Spanish-language albums featuring simplistic lyrics and, often, music to match. There were exceptions, of course -- Dan Zanes' ¡Nueva York! from 2008, his attempt to translate his age-desegregated music to a non-English idiom and capture in music the vibrancy of the Latin culture in New York City was the most notable -- but mostly they proved the rule. I don't know how successful these albums were in teaching Spanish, but the fact that such albums aren't released much these days suggests that there isn't much of a market for them, educationally or musically.

So here we are in the third wave, I think. What are the features of the third wave? I think they're threefold:

1) An expansion of the sound from guitar-based folk music to encompass not only traditional music from a wider range of Spanish-speaking countries, but also shinier pop and rock sounds.

2) The diminution of interest in the song as explicit Spanish-language teaching tool. There are still songs and albums for which that's a more important point, but they tend to be much better songs, which makes any educational point go down much more smoothly.

3) The choice to write songs in Spanish just because it happens to be the best language for telling the story of the song. Much as a musician might choose a particular genre, they can choose a language as well. Here in the United States, of course, English is usually the default option... but it's not the only option.

It's in this third wave that we find Sonia De Los Santos, who brings us Mi Viaje: De Nuevo León to the New York Island, her first solo album for families. Over the course of twelve tracks, De Los Santos sings about her journey ("viaje") from her home in Monterrey, Mexico to New York City. For the most part, the journey isn't literal, but rather a journey in song. Unsurprisingly, since De Los Santos first came to attention to the kids' music world when she joined Dan Zanes' band back around the time of ¡Nueva York!, Zanes plays an important role -- his Festival Five Records is releasing the album, and he and his band appear on several track. ("Tan Feliz," a De Los Santos original, has a very Zanes-ian folk-rock sound.)

But this is not another Dan Zanes album, which allows De Los Santos to put her own mark on the style of family music Zanes popularized. Setting aside the language difference (98% of the lyrics here are not in English), De Los Santos travels the Spanish-speaking hemisphere to dip into a broad series of styles.

As I live in the Southwest United States, and have for the better part of thirty years, perhaps I gravitated to the sounds most familiar to me, those of Mexico, the sons with sizable bands of stringed instruments (jarana and requinto, for example, which are versions of guitar). So "La Golondrina" ("The Swallow," another De Los Santos original) and album closer "Monterrey" appealed to me.

But it's definitely a broader tour than that as she records songs from Venezuela ("Luna y Lucero," or "The Moon and Star"), Chile ("Indeicto Dormido," featuring a distinctive pan flute sound), and Cuba ("Burubndanga," with Caridad De La Luz aka La Bruja helping out on vocals). She sings a lullaby, "Txoria Txori," in a language I've never even heard of before, let alone heard, Euskera, which is from the Basque region in Spain. She even translates a couple English-language songs into Spanish, most notable Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." Here, it becomes "Esta Es Tu Tierra," building from a single voice to a large chorus, and in its translation and structure, it's an artistic choice that is both subtler and bolder politically than anything else you're likely to hear on a kids' record this year.

The cumulative effect is indeed that of a journey, but I wish De Los Santos had been even more of a guide. De Los Santos' voice and the musical arrangements convey a fair amount of the songs' emotional and lyrical content, and she provides some brief comments in the liner notes, but there are no lyrical translations attached. (The website has some, but not all, translations as of the time of this writing.) I think, therefore, that some of the impact of the album will be muted for, say, the 5-year-old kid who doesn't happen to speak Spanish.

This will be an increasingly interesting choice for artists in the future -- do they make albums featuring non-English songs explicitly for an audience of primarily English speakers, or do they craft the albums for the target non-English-speaking audience and hope the English speakers come along for the ride? I think that artists are going to come down on both sides of that question, and continue to wrestle with what they're trying to do.

The 41-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 8. You can listen to "La Golondrina" here. As with most Festival Five albums, the physical album packaging is lovely -- it's definitely an album worth considering getting a physical version of.

Mi Viaje is an engaging album, and De Los Santos has succeeded in her goal of having listeners understand her journey from Mexico to New York City. A Spanish-language kids music album might seem like a niche record, but as De Los Santos and others in this third wave of Spanish-language kids music of the past couple years have shown, it can speak to a fairly broad audience. Definitely recommended.

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

Interview: Sonia De Los Santos

For most of us, Sonia De Los Santos is probably best known as a musician who's played with Dan Zanes throughout the country and the world since the release of Nuevo York, standing stage right and singing harmony and lead vocals on songs both in Spanish and English.

But last week, with the release of Mi Viaje: De Nuevo León to the New York Island, De Los Santos is taking the next steps in a journey of at least a decade, when she moved to New York City from Monterrey, Mexico to pursue her own musical memories.

De Los Santos certainly gets some help from Zanes and her bandmates on a few tracks, but for the most part she performs the songs with a new set of folks, some of New York's finest Latin musicians. It's mostly in Spanish, but she's making music for listeners of all languages.

In this interview, De Los Santos remembers the incentives she had to sing all-ages folk music growing up, how she joined Zanes' band, and the album's meaning to her.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Sonia De Los Santos: In my family, it was singing with my mother at home. Nobody was a professional musician, but there was singing everywhere -- at home, cooking, in the car. My uncle, my mom's older brother was very musical. I was the youngest, and my older brothers were closer in age, so I spent time playing by myself. I'd spend parties with my parents -- my uncle would sing, my mom would sing. [Thinking back on it] A reason I like family music... I listened to kids music [growing up], but if I sang a kids music at a party, they might not be as happy as if I learned a bolero, or an old song of my grandparents.

Did you take lessons growing up?

Only voice lessons. Never music, just singing -- I did that in high school and college. I took one guitar class, but couldn't do it because of my class schedule. But [subsequently] I've been surrounded by generous musicians [who have taught me].

Why did you move to the United States?

I wanted to do musical theater. Wanted to study it more, but couldn't do it at that time. So I went to New York City in 2005. I did a summer workshop in musical theatre there -- I came back home, and decided to pursue a musical career. I had no family there, no job, no nothing.

So how did you get involved making music with Dan Zanes?

That happened about 1 1/2 years after that. I was doing theatre auditions about when Dan was recording his album Nuevo York. He wanted someone here in New York who could sing and whose primary language was Spanish. I was in this database of Spanish actors and singers, so Dan's manager got my name as a recommendation and asked me to audition.

The audition was at his home, and I was wondering, "Who is this guy?" And I looked him up, and... Grammy, TV, played everywhere. So at the audition I sang "Pay Me My Money Down," "Malti," "Rock Island Line." After that, he called back, and I came over and met the band. Then I played a benefit event with them, at the house of a big movie star in Brooklyn. [And then] I got a contract for 1 1/2 years of touring. All of this within two weeks. You hear that album, and I'm in every single track; I was helping Dan with his Spanish.

Sonia De Los Santos - Mi Viaje album cover

What drove you to make this album?

The need to to tell my story. After 8 years, I had lots of stories, and more perspective. I had the great story of my journey, but also while touring, I've seen the need for this family-oriented music in Spanish, from different cultures -- Mexico, Mexican-Americans, Spain, the Caribbean. Parents would ask me, "We love Nuevo York, when are you going to do your own album?"

The reason I didn't do it before was that I wasn't ready. I learned from all of my friends in other countries. I'm proud of [the album].

"Mi Viaje" means "my trip" or "my journey" -- was that something you thought of before or after recording the album?

I think both. The general concept was that of the journey, but I didn't know how it would fit together. Some songs I picked in advance. But then I did "This Land Is Your Land" in Spanish, and [it has] that phrase, "from the redwood forests... to the New York island." Then I changed it to "from Nuevo León" -- which is my home state in Mexico -- "to the New York island." That opened me to the journey.

What takeaways do you hope listeners have from the album?

So many things. First, I hope they like it and listen to it with an open mind. [Listeners] know me from singing with Dan, but this is coming from me.

I'm nervous -- I hope they like it. It's very personal about me, but everybody has their [own] journey, like a parent seeing their own kids taking steps or going to college.

I hope it inspires. It breaks my heart the conversations we're having [as a country] right now. Maybe listeners will see, there's another Mexican woman making music for kids.

What's next for you?

I want to start touring. I've got a couple shows coming up, and I've got a show in January at Symphony Space [in New York] with Dan as a special guest. I'm eager to be going out under my own name. I'd like to make a couple videos, too.

I can't think of another big project -- I'm exhausted, but my level of satisfaction is very high.

Intro to Kindie: Stephanie Mayers

Stephanie Mayers has been behind the scenes of many of kindie's most influential people and places for more than a decade: World Cafe Live's Peanut Butter & Jams (one of the very first kindie concert series), Putumayo Kids, Dan Zanes, Kindiefest (to name the big ones). In short, Mayers herself has been one of kindie's most influential people for more than a decade.

And now she's continuing that work with the recent creation of Mayers Consulting, a marketing and promotion firm focused on kids music and folks in that orbit.

It's in the spirit of those years of discovery that Mayers offers up her "Intro to Kindie," a list of songs introducing kids music to a newcomer to the genre.

Mayers Consulting logo

When asked to put together my “intro to kindie” I decided to go about it by following my own personal kindie path. I began discovering this music 10+ years ago when I was booking for the Peanut Butter & Jams series in Philadelphia -- there I realized [there was] this exciting and refreshing budding genre and all that was starting to be.

This is a playlist of my own discovery from Philly at World Cafe Live to New York with Putumayo Kids, to working with independent artists, Kindiefest, the Dan Zanes universe and beyond. Songs from artists I was working with, songs I discovered from being a part of the community and songs that have played a part in raising my own family. This list is an abridged, incomplete, diverse collection but somewhat representative of how I’ve seen kindie.

All Around the Kitchen- DAN ZANES
I’m From the Sun- GUSTAFER YELLOWGOLD
I Found It- BRADY RYMER
Pink Piggie Polka Pancake Picnic- ERNIE & NEAL
Hope My Mama Says Yes- AUDRAROX
Bounce- ELLEN AND MATT
Gazoopa- DIRTY SOCK FUNTIME BAND
Bed Head- THE JIMMIES
Polar Bear- THE QUIET TWO
No More Monkeys- ASHEBA
LadyBug -TERRIBLE TWOS
Sometimes- FRANCES ENGLAND
Pancakes- BEARS AND LIONS
High Five- SHINE AND THE MOONBEAMS
Hey Sister- WALTER MARTIN
Folsom Preschool Blues- OPUS DITTY
So Glad I’m Here- ELIZABETH MITCHELL
Gotta Be Me- SECRET AGENT 23 SKIDOO
Bowl of Cherries - Rhythm Child
I’m a Pirate- Rhymezwell

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