Itty-Bitty Review: 'Til the Morning: Lullabies and Songs of Comfort - Edie Carey & Sarah Sample

Reviewing lullaby albums can be difficult because the expectations people have for lullaby albums can vary dramatically.  Some people want music to play in their infant's room while the infant sleeps, while others want mellow songs for cool-down time, and still others want to listen to their own favorite band's songs recrafted with bells.

Personally, I land solidly in the camp of quiet music for nighttime feedings, so my praise for 'Til the Morning: Lullabies and Songs of Comfort should be viewed through that lens.  The album is the product of Edie Carey and Sarah Sample and while they hadn't recorded an album together previously, their voices make for a sleepy blend.

Overproduction is the biggest pitfall for a lullaby album a parent might conceivably use late at night for, you know, getting their child to sleep.  This album is generally well on the safe side of that line, with Carey and Sample underplaying their vocals and the musical production, while tasteful, not overpowering the songs.  The album is evenly mixed between well-chosen covers (the Dixie Chicks' gorgeous "Lullaby", or an interesting reworking of "California Stars," the Woody Guthrie-by-way-of-Wilco song), lullaby standards ("Slumber My Darling"), and originals (I particularly liked "Your Own Stars").

You can stream several of the songs from the 49-minute album (most appropriate for kids ages 0-5) here.  'Til the Morning is an album of love songs, just like all lullaby albums should be, and beyond that it also has a feeling of things fitting just so, its songs of comfort also comfortable.  Definitely recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: If We Must We Must - The Good Ms. Padgett

As kindie music families go, the Littletons are talented.  There's Daniel Littleton, an integral part of You Are My Flower, AKA Elizabeth Mitchell (Littleton's wife), not to mention their daughter Storey, who also appears on their albums.  There's also Daniel's brother Miggy, an integral part of The Good Ms. Padgett along with Anna Padgett (Littleton's partner) and 7-year-old daughter Penelope Littleton.

Of course, in both cases, the women are the ones in front singing and writing the songs.  And on The Good Ms. Padgett's third album If We Must We Must, Padgett takes a page out her sister-in-law's playbook by mixing in some choice covers amidst her originals.  Compared to the folksier and often hushed Mitchell, however, Padgett cranks up the volume, if not to 11, at least to 8 or 9 on a few tracks.  It's hard to go wrong with Jonathan Richman, and her take on his "Hey There Little Insect" is nicely crunchy.  "Mommy's Lips," a reimagined version of the Vaselines' "Molly's Lips" (made famous via a Nirvana cover), is sweet and swirly and indie-poppy.  Padgett's originals can be roughly divided into two camps -- rocking songs like the title track and "Tattle to the Turtle" that tend to have a lesson to share, and mellower songs like "Beach House" and "I Love Your Heart" that tend toward the more atmospheric and simple.  I tend to prefer the latter, but the energetic and organic sound of the band (which also includes Daniel Littleton on a number of instruments, Elizabeth Mitchell on vocals and "poncho coordination," Jean Cook on violin, and Tara Jane O'Neil on "ecstatic tambourine") makes those tracks listenable for far longer than those types of "teaching" songs usually are.  (Side note: LOVE the cover, designed by Tae Won Yu.)

You can stream the 33-minute album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6, here.    If I had to choose between the two bands, I'd still pick You Are My Flower (hey, we've been listening for more than a decade), but If We Must We Must is The Good Ms. Padgett's best album yet, and it stands up entirely on its own.  Recommended.

Review: Laurie Berkner Lullabies - Laurie Berkner

When asked to name a Laurie Berkner song, most parents in the midst of the Berkner phase of their life would probably name "We Are the Dinosaurs" or "Pig on Her Head" or any of the peppy songs that I'm sure are still garnering lots of views on Sprout or Noggin or YouTube or wherever it is these the young turks are watching their music videos.

But Berkner's also written and perform some lovely lullabies over her kindie career.  For my money, "Moon Moon Moon" is one of the best songs she's written, period.  Given that she hadn't focused as much on slower nighttime songs, the decision to record Laurie Berkner Lullabies, her latest album, released earlier this summer, isn't that surprising.

Let's get the worst thing about the album out of the way -- the title.  I can deal with the awkwardness of the title (the grammatical pedant in me keeps wanting to rename it "Laurie Berkner's Lullabies"), but I should warn you that this is probably not the soothing album you'll listen to quietly as you feed your infant at 2 AM or something your preschooler listener will drift off to sleep to.  There are too many songs that are -- for a lullaby -- a bit too exuberant.  In other words, taken as a whole, this album may not always work to aid sleep.

But if you reframe your perspective, if you instead think of this as a "cool down" quiet time album with songs that reassure the young listener that they're sounded by love, then on that level the album succeeds admirably.  There are a number of new classic songs -- "Fireflies" most immediately comes to mind, but so does "A Lullaby" and "Stars Are Shining" -- that more closely approximate the more hushed tone I think of when the word "lullaby" comes to mind.  She covers classic lullabies "All Through the Night" and "Little Boy Blue" and "I Gave My Love a Cherry (The Riddle Song)," all well done (Berkner's daughter Lucy duets with her on the latter).

Berkner's desire to revisit some of her classic tracks yields mostly positive results -- "In the Clouds" has too much production value to be an adequate lullaby, but it undoubtedly sounds better than the 15+-year-old version on Berkner's debut album Buzz Buzz.  (I also like Berkner's duet with sometimes Laurie Berkner Band bassist Brady Rymer on a slightly simpler "Under a Shady Tree.")  I don't like how Berkner complicated the simplicity of the original track of "Moon Moon Moon," but I understand why she wanted to try her hand at a new version.  As always, Berkner's voice is a strength of the album, and she manages to avoid the overly precious approach that dooms a lot of lullaby album from repeat listening.

The 21-track 52-minute album will be most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7.

I liked Laurie Berkner Lullabies quite a bit once I stopped insisting it be the perfect lullaby album.  Berkner fans (and kindie fans generally) will not be disappointed -- it's an album that lets Berkner stretch some other songwriting muscles and show her playfulness in a more relaxed set of songs.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.

Itty-Bitty Review: ¡Uno, Dos, Tres con Andrés! - Andrés Salguero

I'm not sure what the demand for Spanish-language kids music is, but the supply is once again full.  Three or four years ago, the market was flooded by Spanish-language music that was essentially bilingual early education (songs about numbers, fruits, and colors) and, whatever its educational value, was often low in musical distinctiveness.  That tide has receded, but there may be a new wave of Spanish kindie in which the main purpose is in making fun music for kids that just happens to be (mostly) in Spanish.

Andrés Salguero offered up his entry in this second wave, ¡Uno, Dos, Tres con Andrés!, earlier this year.  Compared to the mostly indie-pop and rock sensibilities of his compatriots (Lucky Diaz, Moona Luna, the releases from Spain's Minimusica), Salguero takes a different approach, as his album features 10 different songs in 10 different Latin American musical styles.  From "Los Colores" (a mellow bachata, popularized in the Dominican Republic) to "La Clave" (a percussion-driven -- of course -- Cuban/Puerto Rican salsa tune), Salguero samples Latin America's rich musical heritage.  His most ambitious song is "Daddy Was a Migrant Worker," a Norteño song which takes the rural, ballad form and applies it to the type of narrative to which the Norteño and corrido form often applies.  I tended to find Salguero's music (both the melodies and their performance) more sophisticated than his bilingual lyrics, which often lean towards to the basic and educational.

The 32-minute album will be most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6.  (Listen to the album here.) ¡Uno, Dos, Tres con Andrés! is a welcome complement to the indie-rock sound of much new Spanish kids' music.  (I say that even as someone with a natural indie-rock bias.)  I look forward to hearing more from Salguero in the future as he takes his songwriting skills and tells stories for, and celebrates lives of, children from many different backgrounds.  Recommended.

Review: Sing As We Go! - Charlie Hope

Singer-songwriting Charlie Hope has a bright, clear voice that appeals to many ears.  In attitude, temperament, and vocal quality, I've previously compared her to Raffi, and I think the analogy still holds.

On her recent release, Sing As We Go!, Hope continues with the formula that has won her fans on both sides of the Canadian-United States border.  Take a batch traditional songs, mix in a handful of poppy folk originals, add a dash of kindie royalty, and stir.  Hope's voice and producer Dean Jones' unfussy musical choices give a fresh spin to the traditionals.  A simple touch like the toy piano on the old camp chestnut "I Love the Mountains" helps give the song new life to the adult listener who may have heard the song more times than they probably should.  While some of the titles like "When the Ice Worm Nests Again" and "Little Rooster" might not sound familiar, the melodies probably will, with Hope occasionally writing some new lyrics for the songs.

The originals here are lovely -- from the lost '70s AM-radio tune "With You" (co-written and performed by Hope and Gustafer Yellowgold's Morgan Taylor) to Jones' "Harmony" (a duet between Hope and Elizabeth Mitchell) and Hope's own gentle ode to the parent-child bond "From You" -- and feel just as timeless as the actual classics they're next to.  (And speaking of kindie royalty, Molly Ledford, Randy Kaplan, and Chris Ballew aka Caspar Babypants also appear on the album.)

The album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7.  You can listen to extended clips from each song on the album here.  Also, I happen to find the album art here particularly delightful, an artful mix of hand-drawn, computer-drawn, and knitted illustration from Zooglobble favorite Charlotte Blacker.

I first listened to this album months ago, set it aside as real life took over, and when I came back to it recently in preparation for writing this review, I was struck by just how delightful this is.  It's traditional but not musty, sweet but not cloying, engaging but not pandering.  It's a gem of an album, definitely worthy of a comparison to Raffi.  Highly recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: First Songs - Danny Lion

Dan Flannery may be best known in the kindie world for being half of the well-loved duo the Flannery Brothers, but he has an alter ego as a dandelion-brandishing lion superhero.

Wait, what?  I must've been confused by the album cover.

The Flannery Brothers aren't defunct by any means, but Dan has taken his master's degree in Child Development and job teaching preschool classes and music and turned that into Danny Lion, his very preschool-focused music alter ego.  His debut DL album First Songs from late last year is a half-hour and a dozen songs of genial silliness for your favorite preschooler.  Super-simple -- there's a song about having a "Banana on the Head" that is exactly about that -- but that's the point (and the charm) of the album.  The instrument list includes ukulele, bass, and cajon, and… well, that's it, really.  It's just songs like and "Puppies in Cars" and "Dance Happy" which will, well, put a smile on your and maybe even Pharrell's face.

The album will appeal to kids ages 2 through 6.  You can listen to the whole album here.  This is simplicity done right -- letting the humor and happiness shine through.  Definitely recommended.