Video: "Little Baby Born Today" - Red Yarn

It was another stellar year for Andy Furgeson, AKA Red Yarn. Born in the Deep Woods was one of my favorite albums from 2017, and it wrapped up the "Deep Woods Trilogy" with another set of modern takes on old folk tunes, which took as its inspiration in part the subject of parenthood.

Appropriately so, because Furgeson and his wife Jessie Eller-Isaacs got to enjoy the first year of their second child, a daughter. And it's that daughter, who celebrates her first birthday this month, who stars in a new video for a song off Born in the Deep Woods titled "Little Baby Born Today." She was a lot younger at the time Furgeson, Eller-Isaacs, and director Laki Karavias shot the video, but given the impending birthday, now felt like a good time to release it, says Furgeson.

As with the album itself, the video is about parenthood as much as it is childhood, so it may be just as interesting to the parents as the kids, but pretty shots of nature and appearances of hand-crafted puppets should be enough to keep the kids tuned in.

Incidentally, Furgeson notes that the entire trilogy has been reprinted with new, unified packaging (available here), and that he's already hard at work in the studio for the next album, tentatively titled Red Yarn's Old Barn.

But until then, you'll have to make do with the video, which I'm happy to world-premiere today.

Red Yarn - "Little Baby Born Today" [YouTube]

Review: Born in the Deep Woods - Red Yarn

Some artists take tentative steps into kids music, but Andy Furgeson seemed to know exactly what he was doing from the get-go. Playing as Red Yarn, the Austin-bred, Portland-based musician and puppeteer brought the fervor of a revival to his first kids' album, 2013's The Deep Woods, and then doubled-down on that feeling with his 2015 follow-up, the appropriately titled Deep Woods Revival. Both albums brought energy and emotion to old folk songs to make those old songs sound urgent and vital.

After a 2016 detour into some stripped-down arrangements on Wake Up and Sing, Furgeson is back with the final entry in his "Deep Woods Trilogy," Born in the Deep Woods. If the first two Deep Woods albums sound like they were recorded in a church somewhere, this new album has a much more Southern-fried rock sound. Not quite in a bar, perhaps, but not exactly church pew, either. For everyone who ever thought what Red Yarn needed was more cowbell, Born in the Deep Woods is the album for you.

The title track, a Furgeson original, has a driving sound that might fit in more with the earlier albums, but "Old Mother Goose" definitely has that Southern "classic rock" sound even as it weaves together some traditional nursery rhymes like "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "All Around the Mulberry Bush." There are more completely original songs on this new album -- four or five depending on how you're counting -- than on previous works, but I think it's a testament to Furgeson's songwriting skills and his production work alongside co-producer Adam Selzer that it can hard be hard to tell his takes on songs sung for generations apart from the ones written for and inspired by Furgeson's two kids.

Furgeson knows how to have fun with a song -- check out the video for "Mockingbird," in which Furgeson plots the detailed musical background of the song with a detail rivaling the search for the Zodiac Killer -- but he seems particularly focus on the meaning of parenthood. Songs like "Little Baby Born Today," "Old Black Dog," and "Deep Woods Revisited" address life -- both birth and death -- in the tone of voice of a parent. The epic "Born Again" does, too, filled with slide guitar instrumental breaks and lines like "When we reach our destination / Across the river, across the nation / We find we're right back where we came from." Could the Allman Brothers record that song and have it sound a little bit like the Red Yarn track? Most definitely.

Born in the Deep Woods is not a kids music album, but only to those who haven't spent a lot of time thinking about kids music. There's an alphabet song on here that even though I'd listened to the album a half-dozen times I didn't realize it until I looked at the lyrics. (Which you should totally do if you decide to get a copy of the lovely physical copy.) It is an intricate album, and while it's appealing musically and not cryptic in any way, for some listeners, the simpler Wake Up and Sing may be the better entry point to the Red Yarn discography. You could put this album on for the 10-minute drive home from school, but it fits more a 45-minute Lego construction session.

I, for one, am looking forward to where Furgeson moves on from Born in the Deep Woods. The Deep Woods have been a rich source of inspiration for the Red Yarn albums, but I also think that his songwriting on this album in particular indicates he can look beyond the folk music tradition that's informed so much of his work. Not that he'd ever abandon that music -- and I don't want him to -- but I'm more interested at this point in seeing where he goes next than in further expansion of the Deep Woods mythology. I hope he comes back to the Deep Woods in time, but I'd like to see what he discovers when he ventures out further to explore. Highly recommended.

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

Interview: Andy Furgeson (Red Yarn)

Andy Furgeson is better known to many in the kindie scene as Red Yarn. (Even I still need to consciously address him as Andy rather than Red when communicating with him.) That speaks well to what he's done over the past few years with his deeply rootsy (but modern) folk sound on his two albums The Deep Woods and Deep Woods Revival.

The Portland, Oregon musician has just released his third album, Wake Up & Sing, which is a slight departure in that, while it still plumbs deep the depths of America's folk music tradition, it's a little lighter, springier, and features kindie uber-producer Dean Jones helping out.

In this interview, conducted over the past several weeks (it started out in late April the day after Prince's death), Furgeson talks about his various types of musical lessons, the differences between his first two albums and the new one, and why he also got into the business of promoting shows.

Zooglobble: OK, I'll start off with a slightly different question than one I normally lead off with, and that's what are your memories of Prince?

Andy Furgeson: Such devastating news yesterday. I grew up on the oldies station (back when oldies meant '50s & '60s) and didn't have MTV, so I didn't really discover Prince till my teenage years. Of course, he was so deeply woven into the musical fabric of the '80s and '90s that I was vaguely aware of him, but it was a honky-tonk cover of "Raspberry Beret" that turned me into a fan. When I was 14 and learning to play country licks on my Telecaster, a great Austin band called the Derailers released a two-steppin' cover of the song that sent me digging for the source. I immediately appreciated the breadth of Prince's talent and vision. Since then, he's been one of the magical bonuses of life. Most recently, the Rainy Day Family - an ongoing collaboration with Portland kindie pals Pointed Man Band, the Alphabeticians, Tallulah's Daddy & Penny's Puppets - covered "Purple Rain" for a room full of kids & families, changing the lyrics to "Portland rain," naturally. RIP, Prince!

Yeah, most of my early Prince memories were MTV-based, so I probably had a Prince upbringing that more closely matched that of the general public. (I had a family friend who was _deeply_ into The Time as well.) So besides the oldies station (or including the oldies station), what _were_ your first musical memories?

A few of my early musical memories... My uncle had an amazing party trick of playing Jerry Lee Lewis' wild boogie woogie songs on piano, which made a lasting impression. I grew up going to a funky Presbyterian church in downtown Austin, and singing in the congregation was always my favorite part. I distinctly remember dancing around the living room with my dad listening to Rolling Stones records. (Interesting side note: my parents' vinyl collection was almost entirely in generic paper sleeves, as they lost their first house and most of their possessions in a giant flood when my older brother was a baby. They recovered their records, but all of the album covers were ruined.) On family road trips we mostly listened to two cassettes: the Beatles' Greatest Hits and Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits.

I took the obligatory piano lessons in 1st and 2nd grade, but was later inspired to pick up violin by an amazing renaissance man who played Scrooge to my Tiny Tim in a citywide production of "The Christmas Carol." Finally, I remember the night I decided to play guitar, while listening to a top 40 mixtape on my Walkman in the back of the minivan. The intro to Everclear's "Santa Monica" came on and I thought, "I could do that." When we got home I dug out my mom's classical guitar and picked out the chords.

So when did you start guitar lessons (and drop violin lessons)?

I started playing guitar at age 13 and was mostly self-taught. With violin instruction through my middle school, I had built up enough finger strength and music theory to teach myself the basic guitar chords. Then I worked my way through a Beatles and a CCR songbook, which was an excellent education in pop and roots song structures. Under the guidance of Nirvana's Unplugged album and a few more talented friends, I learned power chords and some simple riffs. My 8th grade English teacher was a blues enthusiast and a great guitar player, so he showed me some more tricks. I attended a blues guitar camp the following summer, where I mostly just mimicked John Fogerty solos.

From there, it was a self-education that roughly followed the evolution of rock'n'roll - from blues to rockabilly to the British Invasion and southern rock, from surf rock and psych to punk, then back again to folk and country and bluegrass. I kept on playing violin (poorly) all through high school, and gradually picked up some mandolin, banjo, pedal steel, and other strings along the way. These days it's mostly just guitar, now that I have access to a community of musicians who can play all of those other instruments much better than I can!

That's great! (As a violinist myself who's developed rudimentary uke knowledge and would love to pick up mandolin and/or banjo someday, that's a musical path I can definitely admire!)

How do you go about choosing musicians (or puppeteers, or [insert name of artistic endeavor here]) you want to work with?

Cool! I didn't know you played violin! I'll have to get you to play on the next Red Yarn album [grin].

Ha! My violin is passable, but probably not of recording quality. [grin]

Most of my collaborating musicians, puppeteers and visual artists are old friends or friends of friends. Portland is awesome in this way - it's a small enough city and scene that, if you put yourself out there, you can find incredible artists who are eager to collaborate. I moved here about 11 years ago and started a band right away, and all of the guys from that first band play on my Red Yarn albums and at our full band shows. I've also roped in musicians from bands we used to share bills with. The local kindie community is very supportive and collaborative, so we're often singing back-up on each other's projects. Of course, my primary collaborator is my wife Jessie - she's my singing and touring partner and helps with a lot of behind-the-scenes decision-making.

As soon as I started working with puppets, I discovered that Portland has a thriving puppetry scene, and found lots of skilled puppeteers who were excited to bring my Deep Woods Critters to life. I now have a loyal crew of puppeteers who have naturally paired up with certain puppets, so it's like a repertory cast I can choose from depending on the project.

Wake Up & Sing was a bit different because I recorded it in Rosendale, New York with Dean Jones, while I was on a solo trip without any bandmates. Luckily, he's a brilliant multi-instrumentalist so he was able to play a lot of the parts. He called in a great fiddler and bassist named Jed Greenberg, who helped fill out the sound. It was a cool experience working with new musicians and being open to how they might add to my sound.

Speaking of Wake Up & Sing, I understand that it wasn't necessarily completely planned, or at least, the album wasn't your next step? How do *you* hear Wake Up & Sing as being different from your first two _Deep Woods_ albums?

Yeah, Wake Up & Sing was a bit unplanned. I had been corresponding with Dean about the possibility of recording together, and at one point we even talked about recording Deep Woods Revival with him. But I decided I wanted to use my local community of musicians for that record, so instead I scheduled a couple of days with him when I'd be on the East Coast for KindieComm.

I had some leftover songs that didn't fit on Revival that I thought would make a nice six-song EP. Six songs in two days seemed like a good goal. But Dean is a fast worker, so we got through those six songs quickly and he kept coaxing out more songs that I didn't intend to record. Rhymes I'd written when my son was born, animal folksongs that hadn't found their way on a Deep Woods album, etc. We ended up recording at least the skeletons of 12 songs, 11 of which made the final cut (after months of passing tracks back and forth to add layers and ideas).

Unlike the Deep Woods albums, which are part of this ongoing project I've been working on for 8+ years, this album feels a lot more spontaneous. Dean's additions were unexpected and delightful, and he challenged me to include songs that weren't part of my grand vision. That translates to a more light-hearted and playful album, still with a few moments of darkness. I give a lot of credit to Dean for drawing out this particular set of songs and for encouraging me to give them all a fair chance. And for filling the album with so many sweet and surprising sounds.

Any particular favorites, or songs whose final product surprised you (e.g., because of their final production)?

"Molly Cottontail" was a surprise. We recorded guitar, vocals, upright bass, and some light percussion live. While I loved the recording, I thought I'd save the song for the next Deep Woods record and give it an epic Springsteen treatment. Dean added the balafon - or whatever that mallet instrument is he plays - and it just blew me away. It amped up the quiet intensity of the track and made it a keeper.

"Wake Up" is another favorite. We started with just the guitar, lead vocal, and rhythm section. Dean added some layers to help with the gradual crescendo. I can't even identify all the layers - vocoder beatboxing? synth bass? one of his dinky keyboards? Finally, Dean came up with the brilliant echo vocals and we invited Morgan Taylor to join the gang. The finished product is so much richer and more dynamic than the original live track!

"Wake Up" is great - so much energy! What's it like to have a producer suggest different production approaches than you might be used to (or most comfortable with)? "I Had a Rooster" also has, to my ears, a more "modern" sound than most of the "Deep Woods" tracks.

It was exciting to work with a producer like Dean, who takes a very active approach in shaping the sound of the recordings. I had to open myself up to new possibilities and let go of my sense of control over the sound. Fortunately, I approached this project without strong expectations about the finished product - I just brought a handful of stripped-down songs and an openness to where they might go.

Songs like "I Had a Rooster" evolved quite a bit during the recording process. We recorded one version of "Rooster" on our first day together, just guitar and vocals, with the idea that Dean would add some weird percussion layers. But my timing was off - I kept rushing every time I barked like a dog. So I suggested that we try it again on the second day when Jed the bass player was there. We jammed on the song for a while and Jed came up with that sweet bass line, which gave the song its defining groove. Dean polished it up with more percussion and funky keyboard sounds and it became the catchiest song on the album.

How do you integrate these songs into your regular shows? Now that you've recorded them, do you integrate them differently?

Several of the songs on the new album - "Wake Up," "I Had a Rooster," "Hop Little Squirrel," "Clap Your Hands" - were already staples of my live shows, so I've continued to perform them frequently, whether solo, in a duo with my wife Jessie, or with the band. Several evolved through the recording process, so I've updated my live versions to try to match the energy of the recordings.

But some songs work better as recordings than live - particularly songs that don't have obvious interactive elements. While I love the recordings of "Hound Dog Song," "Fourth Day of July" and "By the Light," I haven't found a great way to work them into my live show. I often end my shows with a lullaby, so "Welcome to the World" and "Sleepy Song" have filled that spot nicely.

This album has allowed me to venture out of the Deep Woods for my live shows. While I used to start every show with the Deep Woods magic spell and theme song, now I start more shows with my wake up songs. I commissioned a beautiful new fabric backdrop that echoes the new album cover - a farmland scene with a sun rising on the horizon.

Finally, what's coming up for you?

We have a busy summer coming up! Next week I head into a studio here in Portland to begin work on the third (and final?) Deep Woods album. I've written a lot of original material, though some of it is darker and more adult, so it's going to take some finesse to make this a totally family-friendly album. I'm excited to see how this batch of songs evolves. My wife and I (and our 2-year-old roadie) are doing a weeklong east coast tour in early July, with shows at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, SiriusXM, in Boston and outside of Philly. We'll also stop by Dean's studio for a day to so he can add his magic to the new recordings.

The rest of the summer I'll be traveling around Oregon and Washington, playing at libraries, music festivals and summer fairs. In the fall I'll dig back into my regular show schedule in Portland, and plan to continue the Fambly Ramble kindie concert series I launched this spring. My wife and I are expecting baby #2 in October, so of course that will be an exciting new adventure!

Congratulations on the upcoming baby! Your answer reminded me that I wanted to ask what your inspiration was for the Fambly Ramble and what do you hope to accomplish with it?

The Fambly Ramble came about after several national kindie acts contacted me hoping to set up Portland shows, but weren't having any luck finding a venue. Portland has an awesome scene for local acts who can do weekly shows, build up a big fanbase, then call on that base for bigger events. I've found families here to be super supportive of family music artists. But we don't really have bigger venues with a built-in audience for touring acts. Village Ballroom is the one exception, but only books weekend shows once a month or less during the school year.

I found myself with three great acts - Harmonica Pocket, Gustafer Yellowgold & Tim Kubart - who wanted to come through in March, April & May, so I turned it into a series. Each show had a local opener and went splendidly. I hope to continue the series in the fall, though I discovered that organizing and promoting a monthly show where I'm not necessarily performing is a big task, so it might be quarterly from now on. But I'd love to continue to expose Portland audiences to some of the amazing family music being made around the country, and to let more artists experience the enthusiasm and openness of Portland crowds.

Photo credit: Aaron Hewitt

Video: "Jackalope" - The Okee Dokee Brothers (World Premiere!)

After a trip down the (spiritual) heart of the country, the Mississippi River, on their Grammy-winning album Can You Canoe?, and along the Appalachian Trail spine of the East Coast for Through the Woods, it's time for The Okee Dokee Brothers to finish their Adventure Album trilogy. On Saddle Up, the duo head west for adventures along and around the Continental Divide.

As with their previous two albums, this new one celebrates the outdoors in songs both heartfelt and (occasionally) silly. In more the latter category (but also a little bit the former) falls "Jackalope," a tall tale about a mysterious and rarely seen animal.

For the song's video, Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing recruited a couple westerners to help -- Red Yarn helps out with a familiar puppet, while Laki Karavias, known to kindie fans as one of main ringleaders of the Big World Audio Theatre, handles the cinematography. I asked Joe and Justin what motivated them to work with the pair of Portland-based musicians, and this is what they said:

We love both of their work as family musicians as well as their work in puppetry and filming. On top of that, they're really nice people with a similar aesthetic to our brand. Justin and I aren't great with puppets, so we reached out to our favorite folk singer/kids musician/puppeteer about using one of his Deep Woods critters for this video. We had thought Andy would need to make a whole new jackalope for us, but he had the great idea of giving Bob Rabbit a makeover. He sent us some photos before they did the filming and we approved of Bob's new look. Both Laki and Andy did a great job of matching Bob's "acting" (which took place in the woods of Portland) with our jackalope hunt story (filmed in AZ during our western trip). When we got the footage back, we were all so surprised at how well everything matched up - from the lighting and setting all the way down to little plot points. It was a real pleasure working with those two.

As for the titular character, when I asked if they'd ever gone jackalope hunting when they were kids, they said:

Yes! Growing up in Colorado we would always see taxidermied jackalopes hung on walls in people's basements or in gift shops. We had some tricky uncles who convinced us that, if we waited long enough, we could catch a jackalope (along with some other strange creatures... snipes come to mind). They would teach us how to hold our gunny sacks and what calls to make in order to lure the jackalopes into our bags. I remember staying out in the woods for hours one night with Justin, whistling and chirping at the moon to no avail. But guess what, tricky uncles: We did catch something... it might have taken 20 years of wandering around making weird noises, but we caught a song out of the deal!

Joe and Justin seem particularly flummoxed in their search for this particular jackalope, but their fans should enjoy this world premiere video from The Okee Dokee Brothers just fine.

The Okee Dokee Brothers - "Jackalope" [YouTube]

Review: Deep Woods Revival - Red Yarn

Long before “kids music” was a category in the record store stacks or iTunes playlists, folk music was the heart of recorded music for kids. And while folk music remains an integral part of kids music, in the modern kids music world, other genres -- rock, to be sure, but also hip-hop, reggae, and others -- have expanded their influence.

Now, I would argue that that increase in non-folk music in kindie has specifically been one of the major contributors toward the vitality of the genre, but others would also argue that something has been lost when the music that was part of the American culture for generations slips away.

Portland’s Andy Furgeson, a puppeteer and musician who records for families as Red Yarn, doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would rail against shifts in musical tastes. Rather, he's viewing it as a challenge to be met head-on. After all, if you title your latest album Deep Woods Revival, by definition you've decided to bring all the energy you can muster to new takes on old classics.

In the case of the traditional song “Buckeye Jim,” for example, it’s a fairly straightforward cover of the version Burl Ives recorded more than a half-century ago with some new lyrics added on. For another track, “Animal Fair,” Furgeson merges two songs from Carl Sandburg’s famous American Songbag, pulling “The John B. Sails” into the mix. Those are just two examples -- the entire album draws on a variety of folk music sources -- Alan Lomax, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Spalding’s Encyclopedia of Black Folklore and Humor.

While the first half of the album is described as being for all kids, the liner notes suggests that the second half is for "brave kids and grown-ups." That half includes songs touching on more serious topics, like death and the not-always benevolent nature of the animal world. The album’s title track, the only song with entirely new music and lyrics, leads off that half and features a chorus of Portland-area musicians standing in for a forest’s worth of critters great and small having a revival.

I think the album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 10. (I think the second half might be of more interest to kindergartners and older, but it's not inappropriate for even the younger set.) You can stream the 36-minute album here. I'd also note that the physical copy of the album features some lovely artwork (dioramas! maps! illustrations!) made by many people, but most notably Ryan Bruce (art direction and illustrations) and Heather Lin (album design).

Red Yarn’s fervor for American folk music is evident on Deep Woods Revival. While folk music has never gone away in the children’s music genre, he forcefully makes the case for its continued relevance in the era of the mp3. Highly recommended.

ote: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.