What’s kwela, you ask? Well, if you’ve ever listened to Paul Simon’s Graceland, you’ve got something like an idea — it’s South African music, full of memorable melodies, joyous harmonies, and the sunny sound of the pennywhistle. I haven’t been able to stop listening to Grenadilla’s debut for months (as I told Debbie during our chat, the only thing I don’t like about her music is that there isn’t more of it), and I thought it was high time we talked. If you haven’t heard Grenadilla yet, you’re in for a treat; visit their site for samples from the album, a link to a live NPR performance, and more.

Grenadilla’s album never leaves heavy rotation in my house, and I don’t think enough people have listened to it. Let’s talk about what you’re doing with the group.

These are songs that were just…in my head for awhile. They just sort of popped out at the right time, I guess. I don’t really know how else to describe it. I mean, I always wanted to have something where I was singing with a group of women, and after I left Dog on Fleas, it seemed like a natural progression.

And with Grenadilla’s kwela-influenced sound, this is also a return, of sorts, to your childhood.

Yeah, it is, actually. Stylistically, it’s flavored with the street music where I grew up, really. It’s funny — my family is still in Capetown, and I try to go back there once a year, and the last time I was there, I went into this huge record store and asked for the kwela section, and there wasn’t one. The music has kind of changed into something called mbaqanga — I guess it has more of a Western influence. Kwela, as it used to be, isn’t really considered a musical form, I guess.

But, you know, it’s still going on. Simple, happy, upbeat melodies, pennywhistles.

Can you offer any recommendations to people who hear Grenadilla’s music and want to delve deeper into kwela?

Oh, sure. The guy to listen to is Spokes Mashiyane — he’s the king of the pennywhistle. There’s also the Mahotella Queens, who are amazing — they’ve been around since the ’60s. They were domestic workers whose fame skyrocketed because of their fabulous harmonies. There’s also the Soweto String Quartet. I like what they do a lot because they can do the classical stuff, but they add their own style and rhythm to it.

If you aren’t looking at the credits, it’s difficult to tell whether the songs on the album are originals or traditional numbers. Not that the album feels like a musical anthropology lesson, but those influences are synthesized so cleanly that you can’t really hear the seams.

The one traditional track is a Zulu song called “Babethandeza.” The title means “grandmother,” and it’s really about the strength of the women in the village. The other cover is a Van Morrison song, “I Shall Sing,” that I really liked, but we did it because I was still writing material. Everything else is mine.

Let’s talk about those songs. What’s your songwriting approach?

As I get older, I find that more and more I’m gravitating toward the music I listened to when I was growing up, and those rhythms have a calming effect. They’re joyful. Those rhythms and melodies just kind of took over my writing space. As an artist writing and playing in clubs for adults, a lot of my material was about pain and unhappiness, and as I’m getting older, I’m just…I’m having a good life.

I’m enjoying my family, I’m enjoying my community, and the songs, I think, are just coming from that. From being grounded in that. I teach part time in a private school, I give private lessons, and I run an adult voice ensemble, and all that is focused around people making music together — and I think the music I’m writing was just a natural progression that came out of being in a community with kids and families, and just being happy with the work I’m doing. I’m really fortunate.

I’d say most kindie press releases I read contain words to the effect of “this is music the whole family can enjoy,” but in Grenadilla’s case, it’s really true — to the extent that I feel like I have to ask you what makes this a “kids’ music” band. There’s a beautiful, innocent spirit to this music, and it certainly works for children, but what led you to take on that particular genre description?

You know, the truth is that I never really intended anything in particular. When I was playing with the Fleas, I really loved the family audience more than the general audience — I’d been writing and playing adult music for 30 years, but with the Fleas, I got a taste of something different. And I’m also a teaching artist part time, and I work with kids, and when the music came out — I never tried to write a particular subject. I almost feel like I’m channeling a lot of these songs less than writing them. They’re just suddenly there.

I’ve been writing music for a long time, and this is really the first time I’ve felt this way. This music is about being quiet and listening to what’s going on in my head, instead of trying to think of a particular subject to write about, or a specific type of melody. I sort of just intended to write, and this is what came out. The energy around it has been so great from the very beginning — everyone has been so positive, and it’s been such an easy process. I never intended it to go in this direction, it just did.

And I get parents who tell me what you’re saying, too — they bought the CD for their children, and then they find themselves listening to it when the children aren’t around.

Grenadilla blends your kwela influences with a strong chorus of female voices. How did you know you were looking for that sound? How did it develop?

I’ve always wanted to do something along those lines. I’ve always loved Ladysmith Black Mambazo — those harmonies. And whenever I go to Capetown, very often in different places, there are groups of people standing and singing. It’s so compelling. I guess three or four years ago now, I started an adult voice ensemble. We do varied material, and I teach parts — it’s community singing. Once in awhile, we’ll do a performance somewhere, but it’s really a place for people to sing.

So I was doing harmonies with a group of 20 women, and I looked out at them and thought, “I wonder if I could ask a few of them to do something different with me.” And when I looked at the group, I realized that the four or five women I was thinking of — I realized we’re all part of the same private school where my daughter goes. We’re very small, a very tight-knit community. We see each other at school all the time. Two of them work in the front office, one is a teacher, I’ve taught all their kids, so when you hear us, and when you see us on stage, it’s a real community.

Do you know what I mean? It’s not like we’re all professionals. None of these women have done anything like this before, and they were all delighted to be invited to join a band. It’s been an amazing thing. Our kids will come to rehearsal, or we’ll pile them into the vans for the gigs, and a couple of our daughters make earrings, so they’ll sell them at the shows. It’s become a — it isn’t a family family band, because we aren’t all blood related, but I’m in my tenth year at the school, and we’ve all known each other for a long time. We really like each other. I think that’s part of what people hear when they listen.

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1. I love it; and
2. You should buy it now.

That’s really it. If you trust my judgment at all when it comes to family entertainment, just stop reading now and order copies of The Bestest of the Best for your family and your closest parent-type friends. Come back here later to thank me. (You’re welcome.)

If you need to know more for some reason, here it is: The Bestest of the Best culls a marvelous 20 tracks from the band’s previous six albums, and while they’ve expressed unreasonable modesty where their earlier stuff is concerned (they’re taking a pair of older titles out of print, which is what prompted Bestest), everything here hangs together brilliantly, from newer songs to re-recorded versions of older tracks to the marvelous “Buffalo Gals,” recorded with Elizabeth Mitchell for a charity compilation and making its first appearance on a Dog on Fleas CD.

It’s just terrific stuff — warm, gently whimsical, and packed with lyrical gems. Dog on Fleas’ music soothes (the heartwarming “Beautiful World,” which contains the brilliant line “God goes clamming and brings up a pearl / Beautiful world, beautiful world”), it makes you think (the jaunty “The Moon Song” compares our changing moods — and the ups and downs of our days — to “the waxing and the waning of the moon”), it makes you laugh (the times-tables-by-way-of-shouting “Twistification”), it brings a tear to your eye (the simply beautiful “Happy”).

Put simply, the band makes music about things that matter — about love, about family bonds, about respecting the world around us. They impart their messages without being preachy, and they perform without artifice; these are songs that sound like the work of people together in the same room. If I could buy a copy for everyone, I would.

What if you could have it — lots of it — and support a worthy cause in the bargain?

That’s the idea behind Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti, the debut offering from Bill Childs‘ Spare the Rock Records, and it works splendidly. The track listing boasts a virtual Who’s Who of the best and brightest in kindie, including Recess Monkey, Elizabeth Mitchell, Gustafer Yellowgold, Dan Zanes, and Uncle Rock — and almost all of the songs are previously unreleased. The set was produced by Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas, who helped round up the artists (including Pete Seeger, recorded in a single take in his living room) and contributed a pair of tracks (Dog on Fleas’ lovely “Sing About the Sun” and the quirky, irresistible Jones solo cut “Little by Little”).

If you’re familiar with Bill’s work, or any of the artists I named above, you know what to expect from Many Hands — it includes its share of boisterous, candy-colored tracks (like They Might Be Giants’ “My Name Is Kingof Socks”), but this crew is fighting the good fight; where they go, smart, honest kids’ music is sure to follow, and most of it is stripped down to its bare essentials. There’s no artifice here, no pandering to children, no teeth-grindingly cute arrangements or lyrics. Just family entertainment, in the truest sense — beautifully recorded by a family of artists, to benefit families half a world away.

More about that worthy cause: Proceeds from Many Hands go to the Haitian People’s Support Project, where they’re working hard to repair the devastation of the January earthquake. It’s a crisis too great for one charity — or one great CD — to solve, but you can help by picking up a copy of the album and explaining the story behind it to your kids. And if you’re lucky enough to live within driving distance, you can attend one of the Many Hands concerts scheduled for the fall.

(While it wasn’t an official Many Hands show, Dadnabbit was lucky enough to play a part in bringing Dog on Fleas to our rural corner of New Hampshire recently. Pictures here.)

The more time I spend with kids’ entertainment, the less patience I have for movies or music that waste energy condescending to their audience. Kids are just like us — they respond to things that make them feel, that treat them with respect, and that trust their intelligence. The artists who contributed their time and talent to this project understand this, and that’s what makes it such a beautiful, valuable listen. If you buy only one CD for your family this year, make it Many Hands.

I realize posts have been lighter than normal around here lately, but summertime isn’t just for taking vacations and soaking up the sun — it’s for doing things with your family, and that’s what I’ve been up to for the last couple of months. We’ll get back to business as usual as the temperatures drop, but in the meantime, here’s some exciting news for readers in the northeast: Dadnabbit’s first foray into concert promotion!

Dog on Fleas is one of our favorite bands, and when they let us know they were looking for a place to play in the area, we immediately thought of The Orchard School, a beautiful children’s enclave in rural Alstead, NH. A few phone calls later, we were counting down the days to August 20th, when the band will arrive for an evening of food (dinner is included in the ticket price) and family entertainment.

If you’re anywhere in the area, we’d love it if you could make it out to the show. Get directions here, and if you have any questions, send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to help!

Beautiful World – Dog on Fleas (2008, Dog on Fleas)
purchase this CD (Amazon)

Until I listened to Beautiful World, I’d never heard of Dog on Fleas, but now that I’ve let the album play on repeat a few dozen times — and I know it’s the band’s fifth kids’ collection — I’m making it my mission to find out where they’ve been all my life.

I have to be honest and tell you that Beautiful World failed the Sophie Test — despite my enthusiasm for Dog on Fleas, my three-year-old has never shown much of an interest in these songs — but I don’t care, because this is one of the smartest, most adventurous children’s album’s I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. The band is known for its freewheeling experimental approach to record-making — their debut was apprently recorded around a single microphone, and 2006′s When I Get Little adopted a world-music feel — and Beautiful World reflects this, making room for everything from gently loping ballads to falsetto funk workouts, and utilizing everything from kazoos to electronic flourishes in the process.

It’s a lot of fun, no matter how old you are, but since this is a kids’ record, Beautiful World also comes packed with an assortment of positive messages about self (“Star Tonight”), family (“Crawl to Your Mother”), people in general (“I Love Your Accent”), and the world (“Water Planet”), with all the pure silliness you’d expect, too (“Do You Wanna Know My New Dance Step?,” “Balloon Man”).

Beautiful World is obviously targeted toward a youthful audience, but it’s an album I wouldn’t mind listening to even when the kids aren’t around — and I just might toss a track or two into future editions of the Popdose Friday Mixtape, just to see if anyone picks up on their tunes-for-tots origins. Great, great stuff.