Video: "Mundo Verde/Green World" - Mister G (World Premiere and Interview!)

One of the kids musicians who most successfully employs a bilingual approach in his music is the Massachusetts-based (most of the time) Ben Gundersheimer, or as lots of kids know him, Mister G. Over the course of seven albums, his music's become more complex, taking on the flavor of Latin American sounds and rhythms. Lyrically, he easily moves between English and Spanish (and back... and back again).

On his forthcoming eighth album for kids, Mundo Verde / Green World, Mister G takes those multicultural rhythms and lyrics in service of environmental concerns. All of which could be dull, but watch this new video for the album's title track, filled with a bunch of skilled instrumentalists who happen to be animals and slick kinetic typography, and I'm pretty sure your mood will lift as you bop along. (The illustrator in charge? Marcos Almada Rivero.)

After you watch the video, make sure you scroll down further for a quick, bonus interview with Mister G about the motivation for the album, memories from recording it, and more about his upcoming book series with Penguin Random House!

Mundo Verde / Green World (the album) is out September 15, 2017.

Mister G - "Mundo Verde/Green World" [YouTube]

Zooglobble: What motivated you to make a “green”-themed album now?

Mister G: Mundo Verde/Green World is my eighth album for children and families, but I've been writing about nature and eco-activism from the beginning. My first CD actually had several songs with explicit environmental themes ("Don't Waste Stuff" "Mister Chubby Pants" "Squirrels"). To me, there is no issue more important than working together to protect this one and only planet we share. Now more than ever, I think it's important that we inspire kids and families to enjoy the beauty of nature, but also to do all we can to insure a healthy green world for future generations.

Any favorite memories from the recording process?

That's a tough one! I was incredibly fortunate to record with so many phenomenal Latin musicians all over the world on this project. If I had to pick one experience, it would be recording the song "Gozar/Enjoy" in the Dominican Republic with the great merengue band, 440. It was an unforgettable experience to work with these great artists (and wonderful people) in their studio in Santo Domingo.

How do you pick animators for your videos?

We love working with our talented friends from different parts of the world. Many of our videos ("The Bossy E", "Cocodrilo", "Siete Elefantes") have been done by a great husband/wife team of Argentinians who are based in Barcelona. The "Mundo Verde/Green World" video was made by our friends in Oaxaca, Mexico. The illustrator, Marcos Almada Rivero, created the beautiful art for our last two albums, "Los Animales" and "Mundo Verde/Green World."

What can we expect from the books you’re creating?

The books we have coming out through Penguin Random House are based on my songs. In each case, I adapted the original song and created more of a narrative. The first book, "Señorita Mariposa," is about a monarch butterfly who is flying from the US to her winter home in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico. Happy to announce that Marcos Almada Rivero is illustrating the book!

Listen To This: "Skip To My Lou" - Dan Zanes feat. Chuck D & Memphis Jelks

If the sound of Dan Zanes singing "Skip To My Lou" with Chuck D and Memphis Jelks throwing in some (new) lyrics doesn't put a smile on your face (and whet your appetite for Lead Belly, Baby!, Zanes' upcoming Smithsonian Folkways album featuring his takes on the family-friendly music the blues musician recorded for the label decades ago), then... listen again. Really good stuff, reminiscent of Zanes' best work. Lead Belly, Baby! is out August 25.

Dan Zanes feat. Chuck D & Memphis Jelks - "Skip To My Lou" [YouTube]

Ella's Kids (Reviews of Ella Jenkins, Jazzy Ash, and Shine and the Moonbeams)

I've been thinking some about white guys with guitars.

I've got nothing against white guys with guitars -- I'm a white guy with a guitar (OK, ukulele), and as I think about my own favorite music, much of it is made by, you guessed it, white guys with guitars. But there are a lot of white guys with guitars making music for kids.

I don't want to speculate on exactly why this is, but it can't be to the advantage of kids music that the lists of artists making kids music on a national level looks -- and, in terms of the musical styles of those artists, sounds -- way less diverse than, say, the Billboard charts, which might feature Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, or Rihanna (not to mention Pitbull or Drake or whomever) near the top. I'm fully in favor of exposing kids to a wide variety of musical artists and musical genres, and right now that's not as easy as a parent might hope.

It's a little strange, especially because the very first kids music star was (and is) an African-American woman: Ella Jenkins. In 1957, she released Call-and-Response Rhythmic Group Singing on Folkways Records, and over the next 60 years, she's released more than 30 albums on Folkways, then Smithsonian Folkways. (Her 1966 album You Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song is Smithsonian Folkways' best-selling album of all time, from any genre.) And while Jenkins is not one to toot her own horn or make a big deal out of her politics (this is an hour-long interview from a decade ago where she does neither), but it's not hard to review Jenkins' discography and think that she, too, would want to see many different types of kids' musicians making themselves visible.

Jenkins recently released Camp Songs, her first album of new music in six years, and with the recent release of albums from a couple younger artists who've taken inspiration from Ella in different ways, I thought it was a good time to take a look at all three of these albums, all of them definitely recommended.

Camp Songs is labeled as being by Ella Jenkins and Friends, and that "and Friends" appendage is definitely important. It's probably too much to expect an artist who just turned 93 years old to be up for leading a bunch of kids in song with nothing but a guitar and her voice. Indeed, as Tony Seeger noted in an interview, "her voice was not as strong as she had hoped when the time came to record." But she was definitely the animating spirit behind the album. And in some ways, Jenkins receding somewhat to the background allows for a fuller musical experience. It's not just Jenkins and a guitar, there are many more jumping in to share their voices.

As you'd suspect by the title, there are many camp favorites on the album -- "Kumbaya, "Down by the Riverside," "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," to name but three. It's led in many places by Tony and Kate Seeger, brother and sister, who have lots of experience leading a group of singing kids (read more about that here). There are also musicians from Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music (including Erin Flynn!) who lead some other songs and a children's chorus. Ella sings a bit, plays harmonica on a few songs, and generally blesses the entire affair. If Ella isn't exactly front-and-center, I have no doubt that she's very pleased with the playful and communitarian nature of the end result.

Before heading into the next couple reviews, a brief shout-out to Robbi Kumalo, who performs music for kids as Robbi K, and is, as best I can recall, the only African-American woman aside from Ella with any national visibility whose main role was making music for kids in the 2000s (and before). If you like the sounds of Ella and the next two artists and want more in that vein, I'd recommend check Robbi out.

Ashli Christoval has taken the sounds of New Orleans heritage via her mother and crafted a career making music for kids as Jazzy Ash. She has spoken about her debt to Ella Jenkins -- seeing Jenkins make an appearance on Mister Rogers:

That moment was very monumental for me. I knew that I wanted to be part of the artist community that used art to preserve the wonderful the stories of culture.

On Swing Set, her fourth album, she comes the closest yet to seamlessly blending the African-American musical heritage, particularly jazz, with the singing together and movement work that Jenkins pioneered on record. It kicks off with a swinging (pun unintended) version of "Li'l Liza Jane," which features an ebullient group call-and-response. (Much more Preservation Hall Jazz Band than Elizabeth Mitchell -- to say that I like it as much as Mitchell's version is high praise from me.)

The word I kept writing down as I took notes on the album was "joyful." This is, friends, the most joyful album of the year. From Uncle Devin's hand-clapping on "Hambone" to Jazzy's insertion of "Fried! Froglegs!" as something Grandma's going to enjoy in "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain" to her giving her band a kick in the pants in the slow intro to "When the Saints Go Marching In" ("Too slow, let's put a little swing into it!") -- there's so much happiness here. It very much honors the stories of Christoval's culture, and in songs like "Miss Mary Mack" and the brief call-and-response interludes with a children's chorus, it honors Jenkins' legacy. It's also a blast -- it's every bit as fun as that cover art above suggests.

Another artist who is walking in Ella's path, but a less-appreciated one, is Shawana Kemp. Kemp is best-known in the kids music world as Shine in Shine and the Moonbeams. On their 2013 self-titled debut album, Kemp's voice was the star, a voice that could literally stun listeners.

Kemp is back after far too long of an absence with Shooting Stars, an album released this spring that I'm hoping gets a little more notice.

The music of Shine and the Moonbeams has always been fairly complex -- jazz, R&B, and a fair share of funk. It's not an approach Jenkins has ever been much interested in. The reason I say that Kemp is also in walking in Ella's path is that the music of Shine and the Moonbeams is emphatically child-centered emotionally. It's amazing to watch Jenkins with kids, because even though she's not a parent, Jenkins is so present. It's clear that the kids are her most important audience, and she doesn't care about getting cool points from the adults in the audience. (She just wants them singing along.) And while performance-wise Kemp knows how to leave an impression on the entire room, when it comes to songwriting, the kids most definitely come first. "Shooting Star," which leads off the album, is a glorious song about everyone having their own talent. "Peekaboo Baby" is blues for the very youngest kid, and "Tough Love" is a funk rocker that explains exactly why the parent is not going to go easy on her kid.

Those songs are mixed into a set that also features some reggae ("Ace Boon Coon"), late '70s (?) funk ("Tell Me Why"), and the empathetic vocal soul of "Any Body Other Than Me." And to have songs like "Soul Food Holiday" and "These Shoes" (a straight-forward jazz song whose lyrics encourage self-acceptance, especially of body image) that speak most directly to an African-American audience on a mainstream kids music release is awesome to hear.

I know I've combined these three albums into a single review for convenience and to make some overarching points, but I'd hate to see these albums get pigeonholed for a certain audience. I'd much rather that these albums be the inspiration for future albums, for Ashli's and Shawana's kids... and Ella's grandkids.

Listen To This: "Colander Sun" - Lard Dog & The Band of Shy

So there's song about colanders and... well, that's all I really need to say, because, c'mon, do you really need to hear yet another song about puppies or holidays or friendship when you can hear an ode to colanders? The number of kids' artists I figure as being up for a song featuring colanders is pretty small, and Lard Dog & The Band of Shy is definitely amongst them.

"Colander Sun" is part of the band's "Song-of-the-Month" project where they're releasing one song each month, given for free for the price of an e-mail address. The song is, according to the band "in honor of Lard Dog's ancestry and in appreciation for this shiny, often over-looked option for a hat choice." Yes, that's weird, but that's par for the course for the band, prepping its next full length album, Dreamers, out September 22. Even ignoring the lyrical subject matter, it's got a nifty, blues riff on the guitar, and some fabulous vocals in the second half of the song from Sharaé Moultrie. It's good for your spleen, or, at least, will cause no damage whatsoever.

Lard Dog & The Band of Shy - "Colander Sun" [Soundcloud]

Radio Playlist: New Music August 2017

In the midst of summer, and I've nine songs for your family's enjoyment. (If you want more, why not check out the June list here? Nope, no July list this time around...)

As always, these Spotify playlists are limited in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list, nor can I feature songs from as-yet-unreleased albums. But I'm always keeping stuff in reserve for the next Spotify playlist.

Check out the list here (or right here in you're in Spotify).

**** New Music August 2017 (August 2017 Kindie Playlist) ****

"Gonna Be Great" - David Tobocman

"Rock Island Line" - Dan Zanes w/ Billy Bragg

"Hot Nights (with Pat Sansone)" - Gustafer Yellowgold

"Big Backyard" - Michelle Bloom

"Who's Your Favorite Beatle?" - Lard Dog & the Band of Shy

"My Cat's a Cow" - The Battersby Duo

"Firefighters" - Annie Allauzen

"Fantastic" - I Happy Am

"Just Dance" - twinkle

Interview: Ella Jenkins and Tony Seeger on Camp Songs

Ella Jenkins needs no introduction, and I have to believe the Venn diagram would show the overlap between "readers of this website" and "people who don't know Ella Jenkins" to be very slim indeed, but in case you reside in that area, Jenkins is a living legend in kids music, leading multiple generations in song, encouraging tolerance and togetherness will little more than her voice, a guitar or ukulele, and good humor.

She's been recording with Smithsonian Folkways for sixty years (not a typo), and earlier this summer she celebrated her 93rd birthday and released her latest album with them, Camp Songs with Ella Jenkins and Friends. It's a collection of songs that might sound familiar to anyone who's spent time at a sleepaway camp of any sort, or even just a day camp. She partnered with kids and musicians from Chicago's venerable Old Town School of Folk Music and with Tony Seeger and Kate Seeger.

The Seegers are siblings -- their parents ran Camp Killooleet in Vermont, and Kate runs it today along with her husband. (Here's an article about the camp.) Pete Seeger was their uncle, so they have some experience making music with living legends. And Tony Seeger is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA and the Director and Curator emeritus at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. All in all, a pretty good match for Ella.

I asked Ella a couple questions about the album, then reached out to Tony for more details.

When I asked Ella why it's important for kids to sing together, she responded with the importance of "sharing, leadership, [and] working together." She said these "are all tools for a happy life."

As for favorite memories of the recording session(s) for this album, she agreed that "it was a wonderful project." Ella noted that "many, many people helped create this recording [and] it was all memorable."

Tony went into more details about camp singing memories and recording the album -- and if you want more insights, I recommend reading the liner notes (available at the Folkways album page link above).

Tony Seeger holding copies of Ella Jenkins Camp Songs CDs

Zooglobble: What are your favorite memories of camp singing growing up?

Tony Seeger: For Kate and me our favorite memory is of our parents singing and leading songs at campfires and other camp events. They met as counselors at a summer camp and went on to run Camp Killooleet in Vermont for nearly 50 years. They loved to sing in harmony on such standards as “Summertime” and “Birth of the Blues.” My father taught his younger brother, Pete Seeger, to sing in harmony on long trips in the car. My father also led singalongs like “Jacob’s Ladder” with the campers. Kate and I learned to play instruments at Killooleet and began to accompany our parents when we were in our teens. We have been singing at Camp Killooleet, where Kate Seeger is now the co-director with her husband Dean Spencer, for most of our lives.

What do you appreciate about camp songs now as an adult?

Camp songs can create a community feeling in a group of insecure campers who may be homesick or don’t know each other very well. We find campers are always delighted to be asked to sing along rather than sitting still and listening. They are then equal participants and we are creating the performance together. Over 14 million children and adults attend summer camps each year, and the music they enjoy together often creates an enduring bond and stimulates fond memories of the time they spent together.

If you could only sing three camp songs to get a group singing together, what would they be?

For me, they would be a call-and-response song like “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” (which is on this CD), a gesture song like “The Court of King Caractacus” (which is on the CD), and a multipart song from Africa like “Bayeza” (not on this CD, though we tried it out).

What are your favorite memories of the recording session(s) for this album?

Ella has a delightful sense of humor which made the long hours in the studio much more fun. She regaled us with stories about singing at summer camps, only one story of which is on the CD (at the start of track 12, “Hill Was Steep and Tall”). She reminisced about learning camp songs from her brother and how to play the harmonica from her uncle. After the studio sessions with the children ended and they were getting ready to leave, Ella spent hours talking with them and their parents. Her enjoyment of the children, her unexpected skills on the harmonica, and her enthusiasm for the project are all warm memories. She asked me and Kate to accompany her on songs we didn’t know beforehand. Even when I didn’t sing “The Damper Song” very well, she rewarded me with a “That’s good!”—as she has done for generations of children and adults singing along with her.

How did you think about Ella’s role in the album?

Ella had proposed recording an album of camp songs years ago, but she and I were always too busy until the opportunity came to record one in a studio in Chicago with a group of musicians and children from the Old Town School of Folk Music. She sent Kate and me a list of songs for the album, and we proposed some rounds and songs for older campers, which she approved. She has been recording for Folkways for 60 years, so her voice was not as strong as she had hoped when the time came to record. So she sang on a few songs, played the harmonica on some, and led the children singing on a few more. Even though many musicians participated in the album, it was her spirit, her musicianship, her generosity, and her enthusiasm for having the children sing along that made this project what it is.We just helped her make it happen.

Why is it important for kids to sing together?

Not all camp music is singalongs. Children also like to listen to each other sing solo, and to adults, But singing together can transform a group of campers into a cohesive and active group. Focusing on something together and sharing the experience of learning something new together helps create a community feeling. Moving together is fun, too. Ella Jenkins has been encouraging children to sing and to move during her whole career, and that works well at summer camps too.

Ella Jenkins (2nd from left), Tony Seeger (far right), and Smithsonian Folkways staffers Tony Harvin (far left) and Atesh Sonneborn (2nd from right) at 2017 Square Roots Festival

Photo credits: Bernadelle Richter (Ella), Lynn Orman (Tony), Tim Ferrin (group)