Review: Way Out - Justin Roberts

Children's music doesn't have a lot of great anthems. Sure, the Wiggles may be able to get a bunch of kids screaming like Shea Stadium with the Beatles in 1963 with the strains of "Hot Potato," but there are few songs that I can envision getting a crowd of kids singing along. (Think U2 and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" or "Beautiful Day," or, in a less enobling way, KISS songs.)

But on his most recent album Way Out, Justin Roberts writes a couple songs that I think reach kids' anthemic status. "Way Out" is about various characters and their dreams and encourages kids to "sing this song as loud as you dare," while "Humpty's At It Again" adds an interesting twist to the traditional nursery rhyme with a fun "oo oo oo" chorus. In concert, these must be fun to listen to (or sing with).

The other songs are another strong collection of mostly upbeat rockers. The use of brass on four songs may induce Herb Alpert flashbacks in adults, but is a nice expansion of the sonic palette. Roberts still has fun with his lyrics, likely to generate amused smiles from kids and their parents (though the phrase "Why-oh-why-oh-why-oh-J-C-C!" in "Day Camp" is likely to go over the heads of the kids).

Way Out is Roberts' strongest album yet. With songs about school and the tooth fairy, it's targeted mostly at kids 5 to 8 years of age. It can be found at the usual online and offline suspects as well as through Roberts' website. Highly recommended.

Review: Family Dance - Dan Zanes

Family Dance is billed as being by "Dan Zanes and Friends." By inserting the "and Friends" part in there, the listener gets the impression that he or she, too, could gather their own friends round the piano in the living room, drag in a small amp and guitar, and record a really hip version of, say, "Skip To My Lou."

That listener, of course, would be completely and utterly wrong.

The reason they would be wrong is that Dan Zanes has a whole bunch of really talented friends who can actually sing and play their instruments. On Family Dance, for example, Rosanne Cash turns in a nice duet with Zanes on the obscure (for me) kids' song "Fooba Wooba John," Loudon Wainright III helps in a raucous version of "All Around the Kitchen," and Sandra Bernhard "sings" (sort of) on a Dan Zanes original, "Thrift Shop." The less famous of Zanes' friends are no less talented -- Barbara Brousal sings one of her songs, "Malti," while Rankin' Don puts some life into those most tired of kids' songs "The Hokey Pokey" and, yes, "Skip To My Lou."

There's not much difference between this album and, say, Zanes' later House Party. The later album is perhaps ever so slightly more diverse (there's not much bluegrass in Family Dance), but however you felt about House Party, you'll likely feel the same way about Family Dance. It draws from the same well of kids' classics, American songbook classics, some foreign nuggets, and a few solid Zanes originals.

The CD is appropriate for, well, just about anybody. Kids age 3 and older might appreciate it more, but more than any other kids' artist out there right now, Zanes is a practitioner of "family music," meant for the whole family. Available from Zanes' own label, Festival Five, or finer online and bookstore vendors. Definitely recommended.

(And Zanes would definitely recommend that you get your family and friends together to sing and play music -- it's one of his attitudes that I find most refreshing. But hold off pressing that CD, OK?)

Review: At the Bottom of the Sea - Ralph's World

With his first, self-titled Ralph's World album, Ralph Covert immediately set the standard for 21st century kids' music -- musically diverse and lyrically targeted at kids while winking at their parents.

It is not a criticism of his second kids' album, At the Bottom of the Sea, to say that it's just like the first CD, only more so. At the Bottom of the Sea is even more musically diverse than Ralph’s World, from the country stylings of “Honey for the Bears” to the faux-Beach Boys sound of “Surfin’ in My Imagination” to the pirate chanty “What Can You Do with Your Baby Brother?” The parents will probably bob their heads happily during the “Banana Splits” theme song; my wife especially appreciates “The Coffee Song,” which obviously bears the imprint of having been created waaay too early one morning (a wild guess on my part which Covert has confirmed in subsequent interviews). Even his rendition of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" has enough subtle humor to keep the parents amused while maintaining a simplistic approach to the song that will hold the attention of the very youngest.

Given that Covert’s daughter is probably a couple years older than when he wrote the songs on Ralph’s World, the songs on this album are targeted mostly at kids between 3 and 8. Covert's popularity means that if any non-Disney CD is to be found at a Best Buy, it's his; otherwise, the usual online suspects are the place to go.

If you liked Covert's other Ralph's World CDs, you'll like this one. Recommended.

Review: All Wound Up! - Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer with Brave Combo

Parents are familiar with serendipitous combinations -- peanut butter and jelly, Bert and Ernie, diapers and the Diaper Genie.

But some combinations aren't nearly as obvious.

Brave Combo is Texas band that plays polka (among other things) and Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have been making kids music for 20 years. You wouldn't necessarily think that they would be making music together, but in All Wound Up!they have made one energetic album that should get your child dancing. (Warning: The Surgeon General has recommended that you do not play this album right before bedtime.)

The songs are lots of fun and cover a broad range of styles, helpfully listed in the liner notes. Some songs are Fink & Marxer originals -- "I Will Never Clean Up My Room" is an amusing tale of one child whose recalcitrance pays off in interesting ways. Some songs are hearty renditions of public domain and traditional songs (including, yes, "De Colores," which makes this literally the 5th or 6th version on our CD shelf). Ironically, the favorite song of mine and my daughter is the one Brave Combo-penned song, "Spaghetti," and enthusiastic tribute to restaurant pasta that ends with three or four overlapping musical lines. As with any good music, you can play either of these albums for kids of all ages, but kids from 4 to 8 years of age would probably appreciate them best. The record is on the Rounder label, available in the usual online suspects and in the "real world."

Review: Yellow Bus - Justin Roberts

What is it with Chicago and the abundance of good music for children out of that city? OK, it's probably the incredibly dense and relatively affluent population in the Loop that makes it possible to create a niche (and living) for yourself by performing kids' music.

See, for example, Justin Roberts. Roberts, like Ralph's World's Ralph Covert, tried for a few years to make music for adults, except Roberts did so in Minneapolis. Somewhere along the line, however, Roberts moved to Chicago and eventually turned his attention to making children's music. Kids and their parents are the luckier for it.

His third album, Yellow Bus, has a lot of rollicking tunes and some sweet slower songs (at the end of the CD -- I think this must be required by some sort of international children's music CD protocol). If you find Ralph's World just a little too saccharine for your tastes, Roberts is less so. Roberts' voice reminds me a lot of James Taylor's, but his songs are definitely more upbeat and uptempo than "Sweet Baby James." There are enough gently humorous twists in the lyrics to amuse adults. Some songs, like "One Little Cookie" (my favorite song on the CD) almost seem like they written to amuse the parents, not the kids. Roberts' songs have definite narratives and as a result violate my two-minute maximum rule. But I can definitely see how older kids (4 to 9) would enjoy listening to the songs. You can get the CD at Hear Diagonally (Roberts' label), or the usual suspects (Amazon and CDBaby).