Concert Review: Chuck Cheesman (Phoenix, January 2007)

ChuckCheesmanJan07.jpgThere are many reasons why the Phoenix area is not a hotbed for children's and family music and to delineate them all would require a long essay filled with suppositions, sarcasm, and half-truths. And while I am no stranger to any of those, it seems a fairly negative topic for so early in the year. So let us turn our attention to Chuck Cheesman, an honest-to-goodness Arizona kids and family musician. In a time-honored Arizona tradition, we can claim Chuck as an Arizona musician because we got him to move here from someplace else. Chuck lived in Chicago, taught at the Old Town School of Folk Music and even sang on three tracks on their Wiggleworms Love You CD until the call of the beautiful pines of Northern Arizona drew him and his family to Flagstaff. This weekend, Chuck made his first foray to Phoenix for some kids' shows (he'd been here before, I believe, for his more adult-oriented folk shows), and my daughter and I caught him at a local bookstore. Cheesman played mostly traditional kids songs, accompanying himself on guitar. He clearly had many years of practice entertaining the small fry, memorizing the kids' names and trying to draw them into the performance. (I liked the hand motions Cheesman's family, who was in attendance, had for "Bling Blang.") My daughter, who can be shy in new situations, spent most of the performance sitting behind one of the bookshelves. But she listened, sometimes singing to herself, and I enjoyed watching her peer between the shelves trying to catch a glimpse of something new Cheesman was doing. Cheesman has a voice slightly reminiscent of James Taylor, clear and sweet. His first family release, A Family Songbook (2003), has a nice mix of Wiggleworms standards with newer songs (a fun "Rubber Duckie," a very bluesy "Big Blue Dog"). He's by no means reinventing any family music wheel on the CD, but it's a very well-done CD with the occasional track filled out with additional instruments. (You can find out more about the CD here.) Of course, in a bookstore, you can't bring more than a guitar, but Cheesman has an engaging performing personality. There weren't many kids in attendance, but he's blazing a trail down here. When he comes through again (hopefully with a new CD, still in the works), I'll spread the word here -- he should definitely have a lot more people listening and singing along.

KidVid: "Polar Bear" - The Quiet Two

Opening lines aren't quite so big a deal in songs as they are in novels, but the opening line in "Polar Bear," by The Quiet Two, is pretty cool: "Straight to the point, I wanna be a polar bear." Direct enough for kids, odd enough to pull in the parents. And now that the song has its own video on the debut Season Two episode of Jack's Big Music Show, it's about to go huge. Just like the song itself, the video is direct enough for kids (kids jumping around in polar bear outfits) and odd enough for the parents (the goofy animal masks and facial expressions). To see the video, go to the videoplayer at Jack's page. Want the lyrics or to singalong, karaoke-style? Go here. Want a snippet of the regular track? Go here. (And if you're not familiar with Make Some Noise, their debut album, you really, really should be.)

Review: Bullfrog Jumped (Children's Folksongs from the Byron Arnold Collection) - Various Artists

BullfrogJumped.jpgIt's Alan Lomax for the kiddos. Released last year by the Alabama Folklife Association and given a new release this upcoming Tuesday, Bullfrog Jumped is a collection of folksongs sung by mothers, grandmothers, and other women in the summer of 1947, when they were recorded on front porchaes and in kitchens by Byron Arnold, a Professor of Music at the University of Alabama. There are some standards -- "Frog Went A-Counrting" and "Skip To My Lou," for example -- but many of these folksongs were new to me, or at least the melody or lyrics were. There are, for example, three different versions of "All The Pretty Little Horses," none of which quite sound like the wistful lullaby has become more than 50 years later. "Skip To My Lou" has about 10 verses, only 3 or 4 of which I'd heard before. There are some stellar voices on the disk. Vera Hall, whose recording of "Troubled So Hard" was sampled by Moby on Play (and who was definitely familiar to Alan Lomax), has a great song, "Little Lap Dog," here. The voice that made me snap to attention every time I heard it was that of 17-year-old Mozella Longmire, who has 4 tracks on the disk, including "Little Sally Walker" and "Two Little Gentlemen From the Spring." Sixty years later, Mrs. Longmire is still singing in the choir at Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, and it seems to me someone needs to record an album of her singing folksongs. I'd buy it. The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 6. You can hear four tracks here, two more here, and samples of all the tracks here. With 42 tracks in about 36 minutes, sometimes the snippets of songs are just to short to be of much listening interest heard straight through. The a cappella nature of the album can also become a bit repetitive for an entire disk. But as a sampler and recording of songs familiar and much less so, the recording (which sounds great for a recording 60 years old) and the liner notes (of Smithsonian Folkways quality), should be in every library and preschool.

Not Satisfied With One Year-End Music Poll?

Well, how about this one? At the same time that Bill and Amy and I were putting together the Fids and Kamily awards, our Pazz and Jop-inspired poll focusing on kids and family music, the masterminds behind Idolator were planning their own poll. And despite the fact that I'm from Arizona, the state that spawned the New Times chain that took over the Village Voice, the New York newspaper that hosted Pazz & Jop for more than 30 years, then unceremoniously dumped Robert Christgau, who ran it all that time, I wangled myself an invitation to participate in the new poll. (See this NPR story for more info on the controversy.) You can see my album votes -- which are the same as my F&K votes -- here. (I though about reordering my votes in order to vote for albums more likely to get support from the rest of the poll, but thought better of it.) You can also see my Top 10 singles votes, which, since it was put together in about 3 minutes before deadline, probably needs some explaining. Not that those aren't great songs, but I think I need to put together a proper Top 20 list. Frankly, the most surprising thing about the poll? I wasn't the only person to vote for kids' music: -- Dan Zanes got two votes (though at the moment they're listed as Catch That Train! -- that would be my vote -- and Stop That Train!). -- Paul Westerberg also got two votes for his work on the Open Season soundtrack. -- Unsurprisingly, Bruce Springsteen placed high (#39) with his We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Session CD (Top 20 for me). -- Uncle Rock got a vote for Plays Well With Others. -- The Gothic Archies got a vote for The Tragic Treasury. -- Other votes came for High School Musical, Spongebob Squarepants, Aly & AJ, Jack Johnson, and Smoosh. You can also find some "kids music" listed in the Top Singles section. Next year, we're asking Robert Christgau and Chuck Sasha Frere-Jones to participate in Fids & Kamily.

Minnesota Parents Know All About Fids and Kamily

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but Bill Childs also has a gig writing about kids' music for Minnesota Parent. (Bill is Minnesotan and a parent, though not both simultaneously at the moment.) His latest column discusses half of his Fids and Kamily ballot. Find out all about Liam's favorites...