Another week, another bluegrass-inflected album for kids from New York City.
Unlike Astrograss' more esoteric approach,
Randy Kaplan folds in more traditional approaches to bluegrass on his first kids' CD,
Five Cent Piece, released in November. Which isn't to say there isn't some oddness of other kinds on the album.
Kaplan has released five CDs for adults, but has also taught and played for kids often. His debut CD is a mix of well-chosen (and often reworked) covers and skewed originals. Artists covered include Jonathan Richman (the winsome "I'm A Little Dinosaur"), Arlo Guthrie ("Motorcycle Song"), and Elizabeth Cotton (the timeless "Freight Train") among others. One of the best tracks on the disk is "Grape Juice Hesitation Blues," his reworking of the traditional "Hesitation Blues," which features some great
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus-style interplay between Kaplan and a ragged chorus of kids.
The originals are a little odder, featuring songs about sharks in the bathtub (the spacy "Shampoo Me"), pesky mosquitos (the bluesy "Mosquito Song"), and, well, "Roaches," which features little squeally roachlike-sounds in the background.
For the most part, Kaplan plays it straight and lets the music do the talking -- indeed, one of the best things about the album is the terrific musicianship, especially when they're playing traditional songs such as "Freight Train" or "Over the Rainbow." But Kaplan likes to tell stories, and so a number of songs include spoken word portions including... wait for it... "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Yes, my friends, the Stones cut has been put on a kids and family album, a decision so shocking that my wife, whose interest in music doesn't quite match mine, sputtered, "But, but, that's a
classic!" For those who are worried, don't be, Kaplan has crafted a 10-minute story using only the occasional chorus for punctuation.
As adventurous as the album is, it's not perfect. "Mostly Yellow (Big Bird's Song)" is a lovely but sad song about Big Bird's inner life that as amusing as it is for the parents, really doesn't fit on an album that regular (young) viewers of
Sesame Street would listen to. And at a length of just under an hour, it's just too long -- the tracks aren't bad, but it's overwhelming when heard in one piece.
"Mostly Yellow" aside, this is a good album for kids ages 3 through 8. You can hear samples at the album's
CD Baby page.
With his mixture of somewhat different arrangements traditional bluegrass and folk instrumentation, affinity for storytelling, and wide choice of covers, Randy Kaplan comes off as sort of a combination of Enzo Garcia, Bill Harley, and Elizabeth Mitchell. On
Five Cent Piece, Kaplan has fashioned one of the more unusual kids and family albums of the year, good for chilly winter afternoons or late summer days. Recommended.
It is possible that Brooklyn-based Randy Kaplan could become, if he wanted to, the next Dan Zanes, playing for the moms and dads a mixture of blues and rock that works well for both the kids and adults.
But on Loquat Rooftop, his second album for kids, Kaplan continues to follow his own idiosyncratic path that might not generate a deal with the Disney Channel next week, but shows off both his musical and storytelling chops.
Those musical chops are certainly there, as Kaplan's voice, ever-so-slightly nasally and raspy, blends in perfectly with his song choices. A couple songs, such as producer Mike West's amusing "Clothes Dryer" (on which Kaplan dryly notes that he used to love doing laundry so much, he went to "laundry camp") and "The Ladybug Without Spots," employ a strolling New Orleans-jazz-style approach. "Mazal Mazal" is a punkish song about a little kid, while the title track is a gentle folk song. Kids are used as chorus and occasional counterpoint (and a kid named Joe does a great "Boogie Woogie Washer Woman") to good effect.
Kaplan's choices of covers are well-selected -- Huddie Ledbetter's "Good Morning Blues" is a gentle blues which, as you might expect from the title, is more blues in 12-bar structure only. Hank Williams ("Move It On Over"), Lieber and Stoller ("Charlie Brown"), and the musical Annie ("Tomorrow") also make and appearance here, and one of Kaplan's strengths is making those songs sound fresh (and appropriate for kids).
Finally, Kaplan comes from the stories-and-(and-in-)song wing of kids' music, as heard on the silly story about monkeys and ducks "No Nothing" or the sweet "(Don't Say) Anything At All," a message song about not using words as violence. It's the kind of song that, strung together a dozen times, would make most parents' eyes roll, but, as a single song interspersed all the other goofiness and gladness sounds just about perfect.
With the exception of the "The Fire Engine," whose chorus "It's big / It's red / It's metal with water" is now unfortunately lodged in my brain, the 42-minute album is mostly targeted at kids ages 4 through 8. You can hear some tracks from the album (and its predecessor Five Cent Piece) at Kaplan's Myspace page for his kids stuff or at the album's CDBaby page.
Perhaps Randy Kaplan won't be the next Dan Zanes -- his love of storytelling puts him more in the camp of Pete Seeger or Trout Fishing in America perhaps (not bad company there, either). But it would be nice to see a bit of Zanes' popularity rub off on Kaplan, because Loquat Rooftop's mixture of blues and folk-rock, laced with good humor and heart, will appeal to many kids and their adults. Definitely recommended.
Compilations are notoriously hard things to compile. Any fool can put together a CD of good or popular songs, but their appeal as a single entity often fades after time. (Really, who listens to those Now! CDs, like, six months later?) The key is finding some loosely unifying theme or spirit to guide the collection.
