Seven Sleepy CDs: A Whole Bunch of Lullaby Reviews

I get lots of CDs, of course, and just like sometimes you'll see a whole of TV shows suddenly appear with the same theme, earlier this year I got a raft of lullaby/sleeptime CDs. I've collected some of the more interesting ones from that rush, plus a few slightly older ones that got overlooked the first time around.

That's right, folks, seven CDs. At least one of them's gonna put you (or your kid) to sleep but in, like, a good way. The list starts after the jump.
Cher and Gene Klosner's 2007 album Stardust Lullaby is a 2-CD collection of lullabies both traditional and original. It's the most lushly produced album here, and the wide-ranging instrumentation sounds great. I actually found it a little too lush for my taste; the first CD in particular seems a bit too peppy for relaxation. The second CD is quieter, and the last track, "All the Alphabets Are Going to Sleep," a simple song Cher and her husband used with their kids, quite lovely. If, however, you do like a little more production in your lullabies, this'll be a good bet. Listen to sound clips here and here.

Paul Cuneo's 1999 collection Rest Here is a collection of original lullabies, recorded primarily with voice and piano. There are some nice touches (the song "The Night Train" has a definite "train" sound to it) and some intriguing songs (the otherworldly-sounding "Jeremiah Lights the Fire." While the vocal/piano combination tires somewhat after 66 minutes, the gentleness and echoes of more traditional songs will appeal to the connoisseur of albums best played at 2 AM. (Listen to clips here.)

Longtime friend of Zooglobble Eric Herman released Snail's Pace in 2007, a collection of mostly previously-released songs. This isn't so much a lullaby album but, as the name implies, a "downtime" album, one you'd play when your kid needs a little break from the day. The collection includes a small reworking of Herman's classic "The Elephant Song" plus other gentle tunes. Some of the songs may cross the line between gentle and saccharine depending on where you put that line but on the whole, the songs are restrained without sacrificing all of their liveliness. (Listen to clips here.)

The recently-released Putumayo collection African Dreamland will be, because of the language barrier, the CD least likely to be sung along with. To me, it also sounded a lot more pensive and wistful -- it just seemed like there were a lot more songs in the minor key. That's not a bad thing, by any means, it just gives the album, which includes a wonderful Ladysmith Black Mambazo tune, a somewhat different tone than most of the albums here. (Listen to clips here.)

Lullabies and Wildflowers is the debut collection from Melissa Errico, and it takes a jazzier approach than any of the albums here. "Mockingbird" and "Hushabye" (AKA "All the Pretty Horses") sound like they'd be at home either at 11 PM in a dimly-lit nightclub or at 11 PM in a dimly-lit nursery during a nighttime feeding. Some of the songs are a little too uptempo ("Wildflowers") for a lullaby album, and it's definitely not underproduced, but the vocals are a highlight. (Listen to clips here and here.)

As with the Putumayo CD, the fact that many of the songs on World Music For Little Ears are not in English may make it harder for the native English-speaking family to get into the CD. Which isn't to say there aren't some wonderful songs here. The album is actually a sampler CD of songs from Ellipsis Arts' various "For Little Ears" CDs, so if you find your family grooving more to, say, the Latin-inflected or Celtic tunes, you'll know exactly where to go for your next multicultural lullaby CD. A good quiet-time album. (Listen to clips here.)

Finally, I happen to put the first album of lullabies from Alabama's Mae Robertson, All Through the Night (review) at the top of a very short list of essential lullaby albums. (It looms large over all of these CDs.) If I don't think its followup, 1997's The Sun Upon the Lake Is Low, is quite in the same league, that's expecting too much. Robertson and musical partner Don Jackson have put together another album of gentle lullabyes familiar (the sweet "Michael Row the Boat Ashore") and unexpected (Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game"). Even if it's just a little more produced than its predecessor, the folky arrangements (with hints of Irish and Celtic music) and Robertson's beautiful voice still make this a lovely album. (Listen to clips here.)

Review: Songs For Sleepy Beings - Half Moon

Maybe it's been a long and sleepy week, but I'm very taken by this CD.

Songs For Sleepy Beings is the creation of Michigan's Gretchen Eichberger-Kudlack, who put together Half Moon, an old-timey string band which here plays a set of quiet-time folk music on the first half of this CD. Traditional lullabyes ("Pretty Little Horses") mingle with ever-so-slightly more current lullabyes ("Goodnight Little Gwen," attributed to Woody Guthrie).

The musicianship here is first-rate, with the Half Moon musicians hitting just the right balance of technical expertise and tenderness, saving the album from the mushiness which afflicts many lullaby CDs. The band rightly plays second fiddle (if you'll pardon the pun) to Eichberger-Kudlack, who has a clear, bright voice. Initially her voice seems too bright for a quiet-time CD, but the secret genius behind the CD's appeal is the tracking, as the music and arrangements grow ever-so-slightly dimmer with each track. By the time the CD hits track 7, "Baby's Bed's A Silver Moon," 20 minutes in, her vocals are much more appropriate for a sleepy baby. Following that is another 15 minutes of Eichberger-Kudlack playing familiar lullabyes unaccompanied (mostly) on piano (there's a couple tracks with vocals). By this time your child (or you) will probably be fast asleep.

The album is most appropriate for kids ages birth through 6. You can hear clips at the album's CDBaby page, or listen to some complete songs at the Half Moon music page. The packaging (featuring artwork by Jamey Barnard), I should note, is simple but very pretty.

I hear few lullaby CDs I can recommend whole-heartedly. Songs for Sleepy Beings is the exception -- it meets that high standard. Besides being a lovely gift for new parents, you might want to consider it for your own family. Definitely recommended.

Review in Brief: Celtic Dreamland - Various Artists (Putumayo)

When you release as many albums on a regular basis as Putumayo Kids does, it makes it hard for the reviewer to come up with new things to say about the CDs. Celtic Dreamland, released in November 2007, continues Putumayo's run of artfully-produced disks. It's the third in its "Dreamland" series, and even the 4-year-old in your family could figure out that it's an album designed for sleepy-time. You may want to explain to your kids how Celtic music -- typically music with Irish or Scottish lineage -- is distinguished from other musical styles, but Putumayo's typically descriptive liner notes may help in that regard.

The music is definitely relaxing, although it may be a bit too sunny in parts for it to be a perfect lullaby album. (I actuallly prefer Ellipsis Arts' collections when it comes to pure lullaby CDs.) There are a number of traditional (Celtic) lullabies here, but as is the case with many Putumayo disks, the foreign language (in this case, Gaelic) in which a number of the songs are sung helps mask those cases where the song isn't really a lullaby. If I had to pick a favorite (or most lullaby-ish) song in the collection, it'd be Susan McKeown's rendition of the traditional Irish lullaby "A Phluirin Mhilis," McKeown's voice and acoustic guitar a lovely combination. (The last 3 tracks, led off by McKeown, are probably the best here.)

As a putative lullaby album, I'd put the age range here at ages 0 through 5, though as with most Putumayo Kids disks, there really isn't an age range. You can hear samples of the 32-minute disk at the album's webpage. Putumayo's still working its way toward an excellent album of pure lullabies, but Celtic Dreamland is a good collection that serves its purpose as a mellow-time introduction to the genre of Celtic music. Recommended.

Review: Napper's Delight - Dean Jones

Though this is the best kids music album title (or at least most amusing to parents) since the Sippy Cups' "Electric Storyland," people who expect Dean Jones' Napper's Delight to be a traditional lullaby album or a goofy riff on a traditional lullaby album will be disappointed.

Surprise and, not infrequently, delight are more likely feelings here.

Jones is one of the ringleaders of the fabulous New York band Dog on Fleas. While it sells both this album and the band short, to call Napper's Delight a Dog on Fleas lullaby album is a good place to start in describing the CD. One of the chief attributes of a Dog on Fleas CD is its spirit of adventurousness, of lack of calculation in song selection and instrumentation. Such is the case here as well. There probably aren't many CDs that include both drum machines and traditional African instruments such as mbiras or the balafon, but they all appear here and neither of them really sound out of place.

I think it takes a few tracks to get into the CD -- the drum machine on the third track "Wheelin' and Dealin'" might not be everyone's cup of tea -- but by the time fellow New York musician Elizabeth Mitchell takes over the vocals on the fifth track, "Grow Little Flower," the CD has really started to establish a relaxed but not sleepy mood. The next track, "Bygones," struck me as a long-lost Vince Guaraldi Trio track, while the reworked 18th century folk song "Turtle Dove" gets a nice assist from fellow Dog on Fleas bandmate Debbie Lan and a couple fiddlers. By the time you get to "Hush Little Baby," which sounds like it's got a tiny calliope helping to provide musical accompaniment, you're sold. (I also adore "Filly and Dilly," a duet with Amy Poux which is a reworking of the traditional "Lavender's Blue.") The overall effect is definitely not one of a lullaby album, if only because many of the songs don't deal with unconditional love as many lullabies do. Rather, the CD creates a mellow mood that will work well as the soundtrack to many a lazy afternoon reading with the kids.

The 42-minute CD is fine for all ages, of course, but I think kids ages 2 through 8 will respond to it more. You can hear samples at the album's CDBaby page.

Napper's Delight isn't a traditional lullaby album -- it sounds nothing like it. Although it has echoes of Dog on Fleas, Elizabeth Mitchell, and the Innocence Mission, it doesn't really sound much like those, either. It is, as I said above, filled with surprises and delights. I'm not sure kids will necessarily run to pull this off the shelves. But I think a lot of parents (especially those who are regular readers here) will find this a soothing balm for family listening and, given five or six spins, will find this working its way into their brain. It did mine. Definitely recommended.

Review: Dream - Mae Robertson

There is no other way to say this, so I'll state it up front -- I am going to be unfair to Mae Robertson in this review.

I could blame this on Robertson herself, but, really, it's me. Or our family. You see, her debut CD, 1995's All Through the Night, recorded with Don Jackson, still gets regular rotation at our house. We first heard it when our daughter was still an infant, and it was the soundtrack to many a bedtime routine or midnight feedings. (Here's my original review.) It was one of the first good kids and family CDs I heard and it is, without hesitation, my favorite lullaby CD.

Robertson recorded three albums of lullabies before moving back to Alabama from the New York City area in 2000 and recording 2 albums for adults and a Christmas album. Earlier this year, she released Dream, in which she returned to the lullaby world.

In some ways, little has changed since that first album of lullabies, now 12 years old. To start out with, Robertson's voice has lost none of its smooth luminosity. It is one of my favorite voices in all of music, and to hear it is to feel the warmth of a towel just out of the dryer. Robertson also has a broad-ranging view of the definition of lullaby. Her debut featured two songs made famous by Elvis, and on subsequent CDs she covered Van Morrison and the Talking Heads, among others. On Dream artists such as Paul Simon, James Taylor, and Tom Waits get her cover treatment. She certainly picks some familiar songs (Radney Foster's "Godspeed," which the Dixie Chicks sang, and Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," perhaps best known in Rod Stewart's cover) but also covers some less familiar territory.

In spite of these similarities to her debut, this album left me uninspired. I think the reason has to do with its production. Make no mistake, the backing musicianship here is first-rate. But it's just way too much for an album of lullabies. "The One Who Knows," a Dar Williams track which Robertson cites as an inspiration for the CD, leads off the album, but is way too uptempo and, well, loud for such an album. It's not like the drummer goes all Keith Moon on us, but the mere presence of the drums is such a change from that debut, which was all hushed and didn't have a drum to be found. Other musical flourishes (the guitar on Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes" or the piano on Waits' "Midnight Lullaby") would sound great on an album of mellow adult pop, but were hard for me appreciate in the context of a lullaby CD.

Like most lullaby albums, it's most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 5 and their parents. You can hear samples from the 47-minute CD at the album's CD Baby page, or you can hear a couple full tracks at Robertson's Myspace page.

So I'm probably being too harsh on Robertson here, not because Dream is bad musically (because it's not), but mostly because Robertson hit the ball so far out of the park and probably hard-wired the lullaby part of my brain to forever set my preferences for quieter, simpler songs. This album has some lovely renditions, but it's not an album I envision I playing at nighttime. If you have different preferences, you may like this for its intended purpose. And if you're like me, then get All Through the Night.