Sara Hickman Will Take Over the World in 2010. Or At Least Texas.

Does your state have an official state musician? Well, as a person who's been living in and traveling to/from Texas for about a quarter century now, I can assure you that Texas cares about its music. And for 2010 the Official Texas State Musician is none other than Sara Hickman. Considering that their 2009 Official Texas State Musician is Willie Nelson, Hickman's in fine company.

She's also in other fine company. In this week's newletter she announced that she was going spend year focusing on families...

Sara has decided to utilize the opportunity to bring attention to arts/music in the schools, in families. Her mantra is FAMILY TIME ROCKS! and she hopes to raise awareness of how school funding is being cut for the arts, and to sell cds to generate income for BIG THOUGHT (Dallas, TX) and Theatre Action Project (T.A.P./Austin), two groups that bring poetry, theatre, creative expression to kids in Texas that, otherwise, would not be exposed to creative thought... Her feeling is that families who create and play together, stay together.

And to that end she's collaborating with a whole lot of folks. Of greatest interest to fans of Sara's family music (namely, me), she will be:

-- Working with Jason Molin on Family Time Rocks!", which will "incorporate music, ideas, conversation to stimulate/motivate/create family creativity time!" (Exclamation point in the original, though, hey, I'm OK with it.)
-- Producing a CD for Monica Cravotta and friends "musician moms sharing songs for wee ones! Whee!" (again, exclamation points and "Whee" in the original, though I'm partial to "Whee!" myself.)
-- Working on a DVD of animated shorts of her children's songs.

The second and third items are exciting enough. The first? Really exciting. One, because Molin has a little experience with writing kid-friendly music (The Jellydots covered Molin's "Lake Rules" on their Hey You Kids! disk). Two, because if this song from Hickman's and Molin's "Newspaper and Trumpet" compilation is any indication of what the rest of the disk will entail (at least musically), it will be way fun.

Family Music Meltdown 2: Return of the Poster

Everybody loves cupcakes, blowing out the birthday candle, and most of all, great music.

Jay from Lunch Money outdoes himself (last year's poster) with this, the poster for this year's Family Music Meltdown. (Though the type is sorta hard to read in this JPG version, it looks awesome in its 18 MB glory.)

Saturday, Sept. 27th -- doors at 5, show at 6, and tickets just $5 (infants free). With Super Pal Universe, Joe McDermott and the Smart Little Creatures, Laura Freeman, Telephone Company, and Family Music Meltdown name-creator Mr. Leebot. (And who knows who else might show up?)

Woo. Hoo.

For Those Who Can't Wait For Summer Music Festivals

Perhaps you're thinking you don't want to wait until August or September to see a whole bunch of kids' music artists. Perhaps you're also thinking, hey, I'd like to see the Judds reunite! (Coachella's got Portishead, you decide which you'd prefer.) Well, then, Coachella's countryfied cousin, Stagecoach has come to rescue. In addition to booking the Eagles for the festival's second, Stagecoach also is doing its Half-Pint Hootenanny once more and announced its lineup today, with some familiar names on the list:

Brady Rymer
Buck Howdy with BB
The Bummkinn Band
Tom Freund and Friends
Uncle Ron and Aunt Sandii
Kid Fiddlers
The Bon Family and California All-Star Cloggers
Croakers Youth/Family Square Dancers Club

That's a decent lineup there. Stagecoach is May 2 through 4 in Indio, California.

And what if you prefer Austin in springtime?
Well, there's always South By Southwest March 12 through 16 with a bajillion bands and those who love (or hate) them. The free kids show on Auditorium Shores takes a different tack, with Sara Hickman's Super Pal Universe (remember them? they were at Austin Kiddie Limits) and the Rachel Tractenburg Morning Show making an appearance Saturday afternoon.

If you're actually attending the conference, be sure to check out Rockin' in the Wee World (yeah, those kid-music puns can fade away now), which at the very least features three very nice people -- Sara Hickman, Austin Kiddie Limits/Kidzapalooza producer Tor Hyams, and Stagecoach Half-Pint Hootenanny producer Karen Rappaport McHugh -- among others. And, hey, it's Friday at 12:30 -- you'll totally have woken up from Thursday night's shows...

Sara Hickman: Sings "Iolana," Drinks Beer (Not Simultaneously)

One of the best parts of Sara Hickman's performance at the Austin Kiddie Limits Festival last September was her performance of "Iolana," from her album Big Kid (that's the song I made my Bob Dylan reference for). Well, the fine folks at DadLabs got Sara to visit them in their studio and give them another performance.

(Warning: I think I've skipped past some of the saltier language in the first half of the video -- yes, a post with kids' songs that has salty language, great -- but in case I'm still low-tech here, the song starts about 4:30 into the video.)

Between this and part 1 of the interview, Hickman sounds like she'd be a heckuva fun person to have a beer with. (Note: the song in this first part is hysterical, but definitely not for the kiddos.)

Review: Newborn / Toddler - Sara Hickman

Austin-based artist Sara Hickman has been making albums for well over 15 years now. I can remember owning a cassette with her self-produced debut Equal Scary People (who knows where that tape resides now?)

Several years ago, Hickman decided to record a kids CD inspired -- of course -- by the birth of her kids. And so in 1999, Hickman released Newborn, a collection of songs for "parents who have trepidation about singing to their newborns." Half collection of lullabies, half something more uptempo, the 40-minute album generally succeeds, usually in more the uptempo parts. A simple swinging version of "A-Tisket A-Tasket" or a gentle reading of Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow" -- pleasant to listen to. And Hickman gives her own "A Slice of Heaven" a nifty a cappella treatment. Less successful are the lullabies. I'm a parent who has no trepidation about singing to my kids, and the lullabies here intimidate me, actually. "It's Alright" is a song Hickman created for her 4-month-old daughter, and while the lyrics are sweet and give great comfort, Hickman's strong voice is a bit overwhelming. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it doesn't sound at all like the way I would sing to a colicky baby -- it's that version that I want to hear. The lullabies are fine (I've heard much worse), but they don't always sound the way lullabies might actually be sung.

Now, if the first album occasionally suffers from a bit of preciousness, Hickman's 2001 follow-up Toddler suffers in no way whatsoever in that regard. In about 43 minutes, Hickman records 31 tracks of silly songs, playground rhymes, and a few stories that do a much better job of showing how simple it can be to just sing for your kids. In writing notes on the CD, I repeatedly used the word "fun" to describe the tracks. From the instant-classic playground chant "I Like My Boots" (co-written by Hickman and 8-year-old Kristen Nichols) to the zippy "Weenie Man" to the ear-wormy melody of Hebrew folk song "Hiney Rakevet," Hickman seems to be having a blast. It's multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and a blast of energy from start to end. Unlike Newborn, Hickman also uses a few more instruments (on both albums, the playing is great).

Sara's choice of album titles makes it remarkably easy for this reviewer to peg the age range, though I'd go a little on the older side, 0-4 for Newborn, and 1-6 for Toddler. You can hear samples and read lyrics for Newborn here and a few samples from Toddler here.

Sara Hickman has crafted a couple nice CDs here. With some sweet melodies, Newborn might make a nice gift for a parent-to-be and is recommended, if only because it's not totally lullaby-driven. But it's Toddler that's definitely recommended -- it's the stronger album and will get much more use owing to the fun evident on the disk.