Imagine, if you will, Mick Jagger performing "Satisfaction" at John Lennon's house, where John and Yoko record him for posterity.
This is the kids' music equivalent. Elizabeth Cotten performing "Freight Train" at Pete and Toshi Seeger's house, as recorded by the Seegers. The sound quality isn't the best, and I've noted this clip before, but now it's been posted to YouTube. Given how little video we have of the early days of recorded family music, this is quite valuable. (Not to mention a great song.)
Elizabeth Cotten - "Freight Train" [YouTube]
Video: "One Shoe Blues" - Sandra Boynton (B.B. King)
I like Sandra Boynton's music, and this, her first video, for "One Shoe Blues" featuring B.B. King, is just as droll as the rest of her output. Not clear what NPR's favorite part was. I liked the stone-faced sock -- "Momsock" -- with glasses and purple hair.
That is a sentence I'm pretty sure has never been written before. The video isn't embeddable, but here's a "making of" video that's, er, longer than the actual video.
Video: "Dreidel Bird" - The Macaroons
This was either the last kids music video for Hanukkah 2009, or it's the first kids music video for Hanukkah 2010. It's "Dreidel Bird" from The Macaroons, and the video for the fanciful alt-country tune is the finest use of backwards video since Coldplay's "The Scientist." (Or maybe not.)
The Macaroons - "Dreidel Bird" [YouTube]
Video: "They All Ask'd For You" (Live) - Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem
I've been starting to listen to Ranky Tanky, the first and forthcoming family album from Connecticut's Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem, so I was glad to see that Bill had captured them (not literally, just on video) recording an in-studio performance for a future show. They're making their way out west this spring; I'm looking forward to hearing them do a few tracks off the album here in Arizona in May. But here they are doing their cover of the Meters' "They All Ask'd For You" and making the N'Awlins classic song very much their own... Dig the fiddle. I always dig the fiddle.
Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem - "They All Ask'd For You" (Live) [YouTube]
Ranky Tanky track listing after the jump...Listen To This: "How Many Sleeps 'til Christmas?"
A lot of the Christmas songs I've been posting or mentioning have tended toward the silly, goofy, and light.
This song is not any of those.
But I like it nonetheless. It's from the Irish band The Speks, a band whose debut album Sing-Along Songs from Glasses Island I like and really should've mentioned here by now and don't really have a reason for not doing so. Perhaps I'd heard waaay too much Irish music on a "Prairie Home Companion" episode about the time I got their disk. Anyway, they typically do traditional kids songs with an Irish music twist (that's the cover to their debut Sing-Along Songs from Glasses Island at top), but this song is a little different from most of their music. It's a modern take on a Christmas song that features a children's choir from County Clare in Ireland. It teeters on the edge of sappy, but doesn't fall over the edge.
Download the song here. A video and more free songs after the jump.New Elizabeth Mitchell Video "Little Bird, Little Bird" = Cute Overload. (Plus, New Album Title.)
OK, you know those parenting magazines you skim through at the pediatricians' office (when all you you'd really like to read is a nice Entertainment Weekly or Economist?) that have pictures of cupcakes which make you want to scream "oooooh!"? This is like the kids music video equivalent. Don't click on the picture -- go here to watch "Little Bird, Little Bird" from Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Little Bird.
More importantly, Mitchell's next album (mastered and mixed, I believe), has a title. Sunny Day. Not You Are My Sunny Day, just Sunny Day. Look for a 2010 release.
Update: Now on YouTube, though not in the highest quality...
Elizabeth Mitchell - "Little Bird, Little Bird" [YouTube]
