Review: All Together Now: Beatles Stuff For Kids of All Ages - Various Artists

Although it has signed very 21st century artists such as Gustafer Yellowgold and Robbert Bobbert (Robert Schneider), Little Monster Records, the new kids' music imprint from V2/Artemis Records has chosen to look back 40 years for its first release, All Together Now: Beatles Stuff For Kids of All Ages. If this first release is any indication, Little Monster releases will be designed to encourage parent-youth interaction. The release comes packaged with a storybook illustrated with kids' drawings, poems that are meant complement the lyrics, and Beatles facts which are probably familiar to the adults but won't be, of course, for the young'uns. And what exactly will you be sharing with those young'uns, musically? Thirty minutes of covers of well-chosen if familiar Beatles songs. Producer/guitarist Kevin Salem has assembled a talented backup band for the versions, which are sung by New York Doll Steve Conte along with some guest stars, including Marshall Crenshaw, Jason Lytle (ex-Grandaddy), and the Bangles (with Matthew Sweet joining Susanna Hoffs once more on a fun "Good Day Sunshine"). The songs also feature a chorus of kids who, refreshingly, are neither Broadway-trained nor pitch-corrected. They sound like, well, your elementary school or church choir, in a good way (see the simple "Love Me Do"). If you're going to put kids on record, this is the way to do it. As well-done as the whole package is, there's really nothing new here. The versions hew very closely to the originals. I realize that the idea behind the CD -- introducing the Beatles to another generation -- doesn't lend itself to massive reinterpretations of classic recordings, but there's little reason why your copies of the original Beatles CDs won't do just fine. Given the ages of kids singing (they sound like they might be in 2nd or 3rd grade, generally), I'm going to peg the age range here at ages 4 through 9, though obviously Beatles music is OK for just about any age. Three of the tracks are available here. For the moment, the CD is available only at Barnes & Noble, though that will end at some point next year. All Together Now is a nicely-assembled collection of Beatles tunes, attractively packaged and with nice thought put into it. As good as it is, I don't see it as being of great interest to people who already have some Beatles tunes in their collection. But I can't wait to see and hear what the team behind this album has up their sleeves when they turn their attention to some original songs.

Review: Colours Are Brighter - Various Artists

I can't say that my initial expectations for Colours Are Brighter, the kids' music compilation put together by Belle & Sebastian trumpeter/bassist Mick Cooke, were very high. Franz Ferdinand doing kids' music, along with a whole bunch of other bands, only a few of which were familiar to these American ears? The whole thing sounded nothing more than a quickie album thrown together to cash in on the sudden popularity of music for kids. (OK, a quickie album designed to raise money for Save The Children's "Rewrite the Future" campaign, but still.) Fear and misinformation are poor bases for making decisions on many things, and kids and family music albums are no different, my friends. To begin with, Cooke has been putting together the compilation for a couple years, so it's not like Cooke read the Billboard charts in March and thought, hey, I can do that. More importantly, the music's pretty good. Franz Ferdinand might just do the best job on the entire disk of putting together a kids' song that's in the spirit of the adult band. With its tinkling piano and scuffling drums, "Jackie Jackson" has enough of the more muscular sound of their music for adults, but the song's chief attribute is singer Alex Kapranos' spirited vocal turn on the story of greedy boy who likes to eat too many cakes. (The boy meets an unsavory, Roald Dahl-like ending.) Another band familiar to some are Snow Patrol, who resurrect an old song, "I Am An Astronaut," which seems like a picture book come to life (or sound), using swirly Snow Patrol sounds. (And, yes, "The Monkeys Are Breaking Out the Zoo" returns Belle and Sebastian to their more twee-pop sounds.) The less-familiar artists sound good here, too -- Rasputina sounds a bit like Bjork on the funky, angular "A Skeleton Bang" while The Barcelona Pavilion (who hail from Canada, I believe) turn in a post-punk "Tidy Up Tidy Up" that sounds They Might Be Giants-ian echoes. My favorite tracks? Four Tet (featuring Princess Watermelon) doing the dance-track "Go Go Ninja Dinosaur" and the Ivor Cutler Trio singing "Mud," a track that sounds like it was recorded 80 years ago, but was in fact recorded only 40 years ago. Not everything works great -- The Kooks' "The King and I" would sound good on their recent debut album, but if there was something that distinguished the song here from the rest of their work, I couldn't hear it. And the Flaming Lips' track, "The Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now" is a half-sung, half-spoken word track on which, unfortunately the spoken words are too difficult to understand. There's nothing age-inappropriate here, but I'm guessing kids ages 3 through 9 are more likely to appreciate the music. If you want to hear the tracks, visit either the album's website or its Myspace page. The album is available as an import here Stateside, or you may want to go directly to Amazon.co.uk or CD-Wow. Colours Are Brighter is subtitled "Songs for children and grown ups too," which isn't a bad description. The songs stretch across the spectrum from being targeted right at the younguns to being pretty much "starter songs" for the bands' adult work. It's not a perfect compilation and there's not much of a unifying theme, but there are enough decent songs that it's worth exploring, particularly if you're interested in hearing a cross-section of mostly British, mostly current, pop-rockers. Recommended.

Review: Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Volume 1 - Various Artists

I begin here by noting my tremendous affinity for Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, or at the very least, for the Wiggleworms CDs they've released -- longtime readers will know I'm a big fan. That doesn't even get to the School itself, which for fifty years has provided countless hours of musical instruction and performance for Chicago-area residents, old and young alike. Jealous? Me? Living hundreds of miles away? Just a little. (OK, a lot.) So with great enthusiasm that I gave their Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Volume One, released by Bloodshot Records (another Chicago institution, though not quite as old), a spin and held my breath -- could it somehow meet my expectations? And the answer is, well, yes. Over the course of 23 songs in 77 minutes, the album puts together songs well-known and not, from artists well-known and not. There's so much here to listen to that singling out a few songs seems unfair to the album, but life's not fair, which is itself a lesson that's heard on a few songs here. So then, three songs: "Take This Hammer" -- Jon Langford gives an exuberant reading of this folksong, first collected in 1915, his raspy voice accompanied by his guitar and Rick Sherry's jug and percussion. It's an old song, but it sounds tailor-made for the 21st century. "Drunken Sailor" -- Dan Zanes shows up with his band in full "Sea Music" mode, giving a idiosyncratic mid-tempo version of the song. It's not the full-tempo, punk-pirate version one commonly hears, but the band's musicianship and their voices -- I love that band's set of pipes -- actually help you hear the lyrics and appreciate them. "Salty Dog Blues" -- If "Drunken Sailor" is the song you're not sure you should be playing for your 5-year-old but you do anyway, Rick Sherry's rendition of "Salty Dog Blues" is not safe for the younguns, lest you be asked to explain what it means to be someone's "salty dog." (I, on the other hand, as a fully-capable adult, think the cut is great.) There are some songs that seemed too reverent for my tastes, but that's a personal thing, and all the tracks are well-done. People more familiar with the folk canon may have different views, but I also think the album really begins to pick up speed in the second half where the songs are more familiar -- "St. James Infirmary," "Down in the Valley," an excellent "Wayfaring Stranger" from John Stirratt. Even setting aside "Salty Dog Blues," there's little here lyrically that would engage younger kids, so I think it's probably most appropriate for kids ages 8 and up. (Not saying that there aren't tracks appropriate for younger kids, such as Erin Flynn's reading of "Amazing Grace," just that this probably isn't your first choice.) You can download a couple tracks from the CD at Bloodshot's page for the album. (And here's my own suggestion, free of charge, for the School -- a bound, printed version of the Songbook, with chords and lyrics, would rock.) Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Volume 1 is a solid collection of folksong recordings that reflect not only the strength of America's musical heritage but also of the School itself. Families with older kids should definitely check it out. The name "Volume 1" implies that more are on the way, and for that, I can't wait. Recommended.

Review: The Family Hootenanny - Various Artists

Detroit is not afraid of you and will beat your... OK, this is a family website, but it's true.The Detroit Tigers are back in the World Series and if The Family Hootenanny is any indication, they can turn out kid-rock with the best of 'em.(Well, they can turn out Kid Rock, too, but that's for another set of music blogs altogether.) Released earlier this year, the album is inspired by years of occasional Family Hootenanny concerts in which Detroit rockers let their hair down (or, as the promo materials put it, "pulled it from their faces") for family-oriented shows.While the word "hootenanny" implies a folk-centric approach, the CD collects artists from across the musical spectrum, from the punk of all-mom bands The Mydols ("Run Crazy Baby") and CandyBand (the previously released but totally awesome "Get Up Already") to the faithful cover of Schoolhouse Rock's "Interjections" by the Katzenjammer Kids. I wouldn't have expected it, but the crazy melding of styles works, mostly because the songs are each great in their own way.The Go! (Jack White's old band) puts together the closest thing to a lead single with "Knock Knock Banana," which sounds like an incredibly skewed Saturday morning theme song from 1975.That song is followed by "Stuck in the Playpen (Again)" by Old Man Miller (Dan John Miller of Blanche), a country-blues with the lines "I wonder if my momma even loves me / In the pen you don't get nothin' to eat / Just some plastic blocks / Some dirty old socks / A bunch of books that I'm too young to read."(As Homer Simpson would say, it's funny 'cause it's true.)The two songs have no business being on the same disk except they're both fabulous songs. And so on through punk, country, pop, Americana.For the most part, the songs are originals, but even the traditional songs are given vigorous new readings.Loretta Lucas (and the Larkspurs) turn in some great harmonies on "Down By the Bay" while the Saltminers' uptempo (and whoo-whoo-enhanced) "Freight Train" is energetic and, well, fun. Kids between the ages of 3 and 9 will most appreciate the album.(Heck, Chloe Crawford -- age 5 -- sings on "A Peacock Day" with her two younger sisters.)You can hear 4 full tracks at the compilation's Myspace page or samples of every track at CDBaby. Most of the tracks here will engage the kids (and on a few tracks, if not the kids, their parents).If you particularly liked the Bloodshot classic The Bottle Let Me Down, you will certainly like this.But I think the album's appeal is broad and will reach many families.The Family Hootenanny is the kids and family music compilation of the year.Highly recommended.

Review: New Orleans Playground (Putumayo) - Various Artists

It's safe to say that the fine folks at Putumayo Kids aren't putting together a collection called, say, "Phoenix Playground," or even "Chicago Playground." Phoenix has a decent musical history for a city so young, and Chicago's musical history is tremendous, but New Orleans is probably the only American city with a musical background robust enough to provide so many songs to choose from while offering a distinct-enough sound to make the mix-tape at which Putumayo excels sound good. While touching on many strains in New Orleans music, New Orleans Playground (to be released on Tuesday) relies most heavily on the side of rhythm and blues. With a number of classic songs on the collection (most notably Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya" and Fats Domino's "Whole Lotta Lovin'"), the adults may be forgiven for thinking that they've accidentally turned on the radio and "KOOL 97, Classic Oldies!" (See also Dr. John's bouncy-yet-mellow "Row Row Row Your Boat" and Buckwheat Zydeco's massive reworking of "Skip To My Lou" into "Skip To My Blues" for familiar voices.) But there are enough much less familiar artists and songs to make the collection not feel stale. I particularly liked Charmaine Neville's "Second Line," a fun tribute about New Orleans' brass band tradition. Credit goes to Putumayo for not always picking an obvious artist -- it was nice not to hear a more-famous Neville brother on the collection, and they chose the unknown-to-me Hack Bartholomew for a rendition of "When The Saints Go Marching In." It's too bad, however, that the collection mostly ignores New Orleans' strong jazz tradition -- while it's hinted at on some of the more brassy tracks, this collection needed a jazz track from the birthplace of jazz. If you didn't have the familiar Putumayo illustrations, you wouldn't necessarily know that this collection was targeted at kids (only one or two tracks are really kid-focused), but let's say that kids ages 3 through 9 are most likely to enjoy it. You can hear some samples at Putumayo's album page. This collection is a gentle if incomplete introduction to New Orleans music. Expertly compiled and arranged, both parents and kids will enjoy it. Recommended.

The King and I and Belle and Sebastian and...

Another day, another song posted to the Colours Are Brighter website. Or, in the case of this particular day, two. The Kooks turn in a 311-esque "The King and I" which, well, doesn't really sound like it was all that kid-focused while Jonathan Richman does "Our Dog Is Getter Older Now," which, well, I can take or I can leave. The Four Tet track is still the coolest one I've heard. Yes, I will eventually stop talking about this, I promise. But I've gone this far down the path.