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.

Smithsonian Folkways Recording logo

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

Smithsonian Folkways Recording logo

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!

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

Interview: Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell

If you're reading this site, Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell should need no introduction, but in the off-chance that you or your partner or your (adult) child just gave birth, the two artists are kids music superstars. From the beginning of their careers making music for families in the late '90s -- they may be the best examplars of what Zanes has termed "age-desegregated music" -- Zanes and Mitchell have held the kindie banner high.

And so while it's taken them fifteen years to get together on record, the result, Turn Turn Turn , is worth the wait. I spoke with them by phone last week about the album, its creation, playing the songs live, and music-making -- not just theirs, but everyone's.

*****

Zooglobble: I usually ask folks what their earliest musical memories, but since you are both so well known for encouraging folks to join in and make music, what are your favorite music-making/concert memories?

Elizabeth Mitchell (EM): You know, this weekend was amazing, we had such a good time. On Saturday, we did a show in New York City, which was wonderful. For the first time, we played in front of a row of stuffed animals.

And then on Sunday, we played at the Ashokan Center for a Summer Hoot. Lots of friends, Natalie Merchant joined us, Simi Stone, a local violinist. It was all unforced, unthought. Pete Seeger was on the side of the stage, smiling

Dan Zanes (DZ): Yeah, that was a good one.

Two thoughts popped into my mind, the first being I was just starting out making music for families. I was playing at a synogogue on Cobble Hill here in Brooklyn, everyone sitting down. The drummer went into "Rock Island Line," and people jumped up to dance. It was the day I realized people wanted to dance. It was a revelation to me. There was an entirely different component than sitting down at a Pete Seeger concert.

The other memory was playing at the Clearwater Festival, we were playing "Hop Up Ladies." I hadn't realized that Pete Seeger was watching from the side of the stage. We finished, then he got up and said, "here's another version of the song."

EM: He was saying, "You weren't jumping the whole octave." [Laughs]

DZ: The conversation we had with Pete meant a lot to us.

So what prompted you to make this album?

DZ: We've been talking about it for years. Elizabeth had been busier than me. It might have been [Festival Five manager] Stephanie [Mayers] who wanted this for years.

EM: It was a question of time, finding it. There are so many balls in the air. We played some shows together, and after that we knew how to make it. We thought it might take more than three days, but thought it could work. My first album, You Are My Flower , was recorded in a day, but the later albums took longer. Finishing it in three days was almost like a dare.

DZ: Yeah, [my first album] Rocket Ship Beach took just a few days.

How did you pick the songs?

EM: We got together at Dan's house. Three or four songs we were both thinking of. We both had "When We Get Home" on our list, and it was, like, "Really?" -- it's sort of obscure. We hadn't talked about songs, and I felt a bit hesitant, but after that... Dan talks about "drawing from the same well," I say "pulling from the same root."

DZ: We ordered Pakistani food, and by the time we got to dessert, we knew it would work.

EM: Another even was that during this process, a friend went to a Clearwater Sloop meeting and Pete Seeger sang "Turn Turn Turn" with new lyrics [Seeger's wife] Toshi wrote in 1954. My friend recorded the performance, transcribed the words, and brought it to Dan. We brought the lyrics to Pete's daughter and asked to use them. It brought really deep inspiration to both of us -- it anchored the record, it was the thread.

Was that an aesthetic decision, to record in three days?

DZ: It makes it sound rushed, but it wasn't. I can fiddle around a lot. But the musicians are all so good at what they do.

EM: We rehearsed ahead of time, and thought about it. We didn't want to be overly precious. A lot of music we're inspired by was made in a present way, very real.

DZ: There were a lot of breaks for snacks; Elizabeth even took a field trip, or maybe she was sleeping. [Laughs]

EM: That field trip was to Ashokan, I was not sleeping.

DZ: I like the idea that music-making is part of real life.

Do you think more people are making music-making part of their life?

EM: I hope so... I think so. People certainly say yes.

I love hearing about people changing the music I make, like how they change "Little Bird" or "Little Liza Jane" or Freight Train," including where they live, where they go. In that sense, that's positive feedback.

DZ: I think so, too. When my daughter Anna was born, I obsessed about finding the music that would be the first she heard, and somebody asked why it couldn't be me . And it never even occurred to me that I could've been the first music she heard. That idea is really in the air now.

You know, I live in Brooklyn, where people are butchering their own meat and having nineteenth-century cabdriver handlebar mustaches, carrying banjos. There's a pushback against consumerism.

So what have you enjoyed playing live from the new album?

EM: We just did "Coney Island Avenue" for the first time. I was intimidated before, but I got some newfound drum courage, and it was fun.

DZ: Liz's "Honeybee" -- I played that with a friend who came over and it was a totally satisfying experience.

EM: "Turn Turn Turn" is a powerful and lovely song -- we can invoke Pete Seeger to get people to join us in song.

DZ: You know, another personal memory -- my family didn't sing, but every few years when I was a kid we'd go see Pete Seeger in concert. That was a communal experience. Who knows, maybe some of these families at our concerts are like mine, and will remember that experience [like I did Pete].

It's pretty obvious that the Seeger family has had a big impact on both of your careers.

EM: Definitely. Pete Seeger, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger -- in a performative sense, they're almost initimidating. Mike especially -- I'd never pick up the guitar if I felt I had to match his skill.

Seeing Pete in concert is tremendously inspiring. He did a performance we went to for a CELLAbration concert honoring Ella Jenkins. He didn't get near the microphone, he was just getting the audience to sing along. Inspiring.

DZ: He's outlined how to do it in a book. One word he keeps coming back to is participation. If that's all you had as a kids' entertainer, it's perfect.

EM: I'm not inspired by music designed to be consumed by kids. They should be part of it.

DZ: Elizabeth's better at that than me.

EM: No!

I think you both do a great job of getting audience participation, but in different ways.

EM: Dan's rock-n-roll, I'm more of a nice teacher.

DZ: We're learning from each other.

EM: Totally.

What's next for each of you?

EM: I've got a Christmas record [The Sounding Joy ] coming out, and hopefully my album with Suni Paz will be coming out next year.

And, of course, lots of shows with Dan this fall. I'll say as I'm leaving a concert with Dan, "When will I see you again?" and he'll say, "Tomorrow!"

DZ: That Christmas album is great, by the way. I'm developing a music program for kids ages eighteen months through eight years. The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music will participate and hopefully go national. And I've been thinking about young people a lot and will be recording an album specifically for kids.

Photo credits: Zanes and Elizabeth, Greta Nicholas; front steps, Anna Zanes; field, Stephanie Mayers.