Photo credit: Michelle Pedone Laurie Berkner needs no introduction. In spite of this fact, I'll provide one anyway. Over the course of five albums and more than a decade, Berkner has become quite possibly the biggest kids music superstar, at least among the preschool set. Although there have been a number of other folks who have been making great music as well over the past decade, I think it's Berkner's appearances on Noggin's Jack's Big Music Show that served as the tipping point, the catalyst for finally making the genre resurgent. Berkner talked to me while riding in a cab to her New York City offices. Read on for details of her first singing experiences, what it's like to give up (some) control in the studio, and how hard it is to not lose sight of those singing experience amidst all the other business aspects of life as a musician. Zooglobble: What were your strongest musical memories growing up? Laurie Berkner: Well, the first memory was being 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 years old, and my parents made me stay in my room until a certain hour in the morning. I had a Fisher-Price record player, and I had a "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music. Our bedrooms must have been on opposite ends of the apartment, because I would march around the room and sing loudly. The first time I sang in a group I was about 7, and it was my first chorus practice. We sang the schools' theme, "A whale of a school." It was the most incredible feeling to me... I listened to a lot of Broadway music, and then being in college, I listened to Joni Mitchell. When did you know you wanted to be a musician? I graduated from college as a psychology major, with an art history minor. Coming home, I wasn't sure what I'd do. My dad said, "I thought you'd be a musician." And I said, "Who would pay me?" So my parents said they would pay for an apartment for 1 year, and pretty quickly, I got a job as a preschool music specialist.