CD Review: Various Artists, “Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti”

You wouldn’t be visiting Dadnabbit if you weren’t looking for quality entertainment that your whole family can enjoy.

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.

CD Review: Pete Seeger, “Tomorrow’s Children”

Even during his younger days, Pete Seeger was something of an ambivalent recording artist. He feared that the more he sang on record, the less likely people would be to join in and sing along; foreign as it might seem in this age of tabloid-reported indiscretions and phony social media friendships, Seeger never desired celebrity. He’s really always worked to build a creative relationship with his audience, and he’s always stressed the power of participation — in family, in community, and in the arts.

Now 91, Seeger isn’t the vocalist he used to be, but he’s only used this as an excuse to further embrace the group performances he’s always encouraged; his Appleseed Recordings tenure has included a number of collaborations, and that trend continues with the delightful Tomorrow’s Children. Read the rest of this entry

CD Reviews: Music for Little People, “Pickin’ & Grinnin’” and “Love & Peace”

Music for Little People turns 25 this year, and they’re celebrating by releasing a pair of compilations that reflect their quarter-century dedication to helping parents entertain kids: Pickin’ & Grinnin’: Great Folk Songs for Kids and Love & Peace: Greatest Hits for Kids. Between them, you get 32 tracks from a pleasing variety of performers from across the kids’ music spectrum, and though they’re arranged thematically, both collections are similar enough — and they both include songs from so many talented artists — that either one will suit pretty much any family mood.

Both compilations include a number of kiddie giants — Raffi, who I hate, pops up on both of them — but you can expect plenty of surprises, too. Buckweat Zydeco and Bonnie Raitt appear on Pickin’ & Grinnin’, for instance, and on Love & Peace, you’ll hear Faith Hill, Sheila E., and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson (the latter popping up, along with some kids, on a sweeter-than-you’d-expect version of “If I Had a Hammer”).

All in all, it’s really entertaining stuff, and although the current age of mp3s, iPods, and burned CDs has left us less reliant than ever on label-curated compilations, both Pickin’ & Grinnin’ and Love & Peace are perfect for keeping handy in the car for long family car rides. They’re also great for educators (as my kindergarten-teaching wife can attest), or anyone who finds themselves responsible for wrangling a group of little people. You could seek most of this stuff out on your own, but really, any albums that collect songs from Taj Mahal, Pete Seeger, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Los Lobos, Maria Muldaur, Dan Zanes, Woody Guthrie — and many, many more — are worth celebrating, aren’t they? For any parent who’s building a kindie collection, these two CDs are a splendid way to start, blending time-tested classics and new favorites with style. Wonderful, just wonderful.

CD Review: Sarah Lee Guthrie & Family, “Go Waggaloo”

Sarah Lee Guthrie is Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter — and the youngest daughter of Arlo Guthrie, whose “Alice’s Restaurant” took satirical folk protest songs to a whole new level — so her first children’s CD, Go Waggaloo, carries a greater weight of expectation than most debuts. Then again, most artists don’t debut on Smithsonian Folkways, a label geared much more strongly toward the music of the past, but Guthrie’s music fits right in: Waggaloo adds a vibrant new thread to the tapestry of traditional American music, weaving together a seamless blend of original songs and Woody Guthrie covers to produce a lovely, yet wonderfully raw, hootenanny record for the whole family.

Go Waggaloo is credited to Sarah Lee Guthrie & Family, and the credits reflect that spirit: Songwriting credits are spread between Sarah, her husband Johnny Irion, and their daughter Olivia, and a whole passel of Guthries — plus family friends like Pete Seeger — show up on the recordings. The connections between the musicians — and from the musicians to the songs — translates into an album whose warmth is felt from the first sunny strains of the opening track, “Don’t I Fit in My Daddy’s Shoes?,” and lasts clear through to the final ringing chords of “Oni’s Ponies.” In between, you get a half hour of fun that includes the joyous title track, the startling morality tale “Oh How He Lied,” the lovely “Big Moon,” a transcendent group runthrough of the classic “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” and much more. It feels less like an album than an accidental peek into a very talented family’s singalong, which fits right in with the Guthrie/Seeger musical mission statement: Singing is just as important as listening, and everything is more fun when we all join in. Read the rest of this entry

Book/CD Review: “Sunday in Kyoto”

You may never have heard of Gilles Vigneault, but he’s a cultural icon in Canada, particularly in Quebec, where his music so popular that one of his songs has replaced “Happy Birthday” as the birthday party anthem of choice. One of Vigneault’s fans is Roland Stringer, founder of publishing company The Secret Mountain; he’s referred to Vigneault as “French Canada’s Pete Seeger,” and now, he’s giving Vigneault a chance to raise his profile with American listeners — and readers — with Secret Mountain’s latest beautifully packaged book/CD combo, Sunday in Kyoto.

A collection of 14 Vigneault songs performed by Canadian singers including Patrick Watson, Thomas Hellman, Coral Egan, and Vigneault’s daughter Jessica, Kyoto highlights Gilles’ gentle whimsy; the title track, for instance, is about a Cajun musician who lives in Kyoto with his Japanese wife, where they lead jam sessions and perform for Buddhist monks (“Let me tell you about Yoshi / Fingers dancing on the harp / Has a pond of swimming carp / Just don’t say the word ‘sushi’”). Other songs continue in the same vein, from the sprightly “When the Danse Began” to the mock-operatic “Four Eggs” and effortlessly catchy “The Great Big Kite.” The arrangements are clean and jazzy, with charmingly silly vocal contributions from the singers, and the lyrics manage to be appropriate and educational while also avoiding your typical well-worn kids’ music subjects (one notable exception is “One, Two, Three, ABCD,” which will use copious amounts of Jew’s harp and lyrics about bovine peeing and farting to squeeze gales of laughter out of your children). Read the rest of this entry