Review: My Cup of Tea - Heidi Swedberg

On her first album Play!, Heidi Swedberg gave us a celebration of the ukulele, playing (for the most part) simple songs designed to get uke-enthusiasts to play along.  The songs and arrangements were playful to be sure, and definitely more than somebody strumming the ukulele, but its ambitions were modest.

Move forward three years, and her follow up My Cup of Tea reveals Swedberg's true ambition -- to be the vaudevillian Dan Zanes of family music.  Yes, that cover photo, with family and friends playing roles of Civil War reenactors, Frida Kahlo, and barechested strongmen (to name a few), is a nice visual complement to the album's contents.  From the Jazz Age zip of the original title track which leads off the disk with a good dozen instruments and nearly as many voices to Swedberg's vocally dramatic take on Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat," if you're looking for an album with a single, distinctive groove, please move along.

The songs here are varied, and not in the "one song reggae, one song rap" approach that kids albums sometimes take.  After that Edward Lear song, the traditional folk tune "Little Birdie," perhaps the simplest song on the album, segues into the uptempo Panamanian tune "Al Tambor."  And while on a lot of albums, "Duermete," a Spanish lullaby, might be the album closer, Swedberg's duet with Cesar Bauvallet subtly turns into a Cuban-tinged raveup.  It's in these wild leaps from song to song that Swedberg and her collaborators -- primarily Daniel Ward and John Bartlit -- shine instrumentally.

Of course, given the wide-ranging musical interests, not everything succeeds -- there is no love lost between me and "Boogie Man," which takes a cheesy boogie theme and cranks it up to the point of clicking fast-forward.  And while I liked her more dramatic takes on "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "Istanbul" (made famous once more by distant cousin John Linnell in They Might Be Giants), some listeners might be put off by that musical playacting.  YMMV.

In true Zanes-ian fashion, there is very little here that could be pegged at a specific (non-adult) age range, so I'll call it ages 3 and up.  You can hear a sampler here.

You can appreciate My Cup of Tea  as a straight-up album of music from folk and world traditions played with verve and imaginatively arranged.  But I think you'll get more out of it if you think of it as a variety show without the banter, skits, and sponsor thanks.  In fact, somebody please get Ms. Swedberg a gig hosting her own variety show, pronto.  Signed, the Universe.  Definitely recommended.

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

How I Got Here: Jeff Krebs AKA Papa Crow (Heart / Dan Zanes)

The first album from Papa Crow, AKA Michigan's Jeff Krebs -- Things That Roar -- charmed just about everybody who heard it with its tender folk.  As if to clear the air, so to his speak, his follow-up, What Was That Sound?, was a five-song EP about flatulence.

Krebs is clearly a man of many talents and inspiration -- in addition to working on his full length follow-up Full Moon, Full Moon (clips here), he's also working on an EP of monkey-based ukulele songs (Monkeylele, clips here) and an EP based on Edward Lear poems (Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, clips here and here).

At this point, I'd accept just about anything as his musical inspiration.  As it is, Krebs offers up two albums -- Heart's 1976 hit album Dreamboat Annie and Dan Zanes' [in my view totally overlooked] Sea Music.

***** 

The first album that I remember becoming completely obsessed with was Heart's debut Dreamboat Annie.  As a youngster, I always had an ear to the radio and I kept lists of all the songs on American Top 40, making notes of songs I liked and disliked. I had heard the singles “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You” and felt an immediate connection to the album after successfully lobbying my mom to buy it for me. I wonder how many times I listened to this in my room with the headphones on, memorizing the liner notes, lyrics and photos. I knew which drummer and which guitarist played on each track. The pictures of Heart on the inside cover foldout made me want to start a rock band; it seemed like the most exciting thing one could do. Within a few years I had a little garage band of my own.

On Dreamboat Annie, Heart served up mystical tales of love, rock and roll, and the sea. Ann's sultry voice was way up front, and she could wail or sing a ballad with equal power. I loved the way Nancy Wilson's inventive acoustic playing contrasted the muscle of Roger Fisher's electric. There were more soft songs here than rockers, though the rockers were the hits. It all worked sonically for me, and I would never tire of spinning this album. There are numerous albums like Pink Moon, Revolver, and Rain Dogs that were probably more influential on me later in life, but Dreamboat Annie was my first love.

Fast forward a few decades to when my wife and I were expecting our first kid. I'm on YouTube searching for kids songs and click on Dan Zanes singing “All Around the Kitchen”. Here's a guy with whacky hair, a purple suit, a cheap guitar and a diverse band singing a silly, rocking song while dancing around with kids. I was floored by the vibe! This video opened a door for me into the possibilities of what family music can be. I checked Dan's catalog and ordered Sea Music as I was most drawn to it.

What an album! I immediately loved the feel of these old sea shanties. The sound is natural, simple, homemade; it's the sound of a bunch of friends singing around a campfire (or on the deck of a whaling ship). Guitars, banjos, accordions and mandolins provide the backing. Take “All for Me Grog” for example: Zanes has a boy (backed by other kids) sing this boozy lament—it even has “arse” in the lyrics! Now, that's pushing the limits of family music, and certainly one of my all-time favorite recordings. What Zanes was doing seemed so appealing and I really tuned into family music, checking out dozens of kids music CDs at the library and finding what worked for me, artists like Elizabeth Mitchell, Dog on Fleas and Frances England. I was writing my own family songs before my first boy was born. I have since bought most of Dan's amazing family music albums, but Sea Music remains a favorite as it was my first.

I have lived close to the water for most of my life. I grew up on Lake Michigan, worked on San Francisco Bay boats for many years, and now my family and I live a couple of blocks from Lake Superior. Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe it has something to do with why the sea-themed Dreamboat Annie and Sea Music were such big influences on the music I make.

Video: "Bigga Bagga" - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke

I do so love "Bigga Bagga" from the latest Key Wilde and Mr. Clarke album, Pleased To Meet You.  I haven't the foggiest idea what the song is about, though.

Here to clear up the matter (or not) is the latest video from the band, illustrated by Wilde himself, of course.  A video that encourages close pictoral analysis.

Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke - "Bigga Bagga" [YouTube] 

Review: Baby Beatles - Caspar Babypants

Let us first stipulate that there is no need for a Beatles cover album. The most popular rock band of all time, I have no doubt full cover albums number in the thousands (let alone individual songs, which probably approach if not exceed a million in recorded form).  The originals are permanently lodged in listeners' heads, often in a way that those listeners might wonder why anybody would even try improving upon them.

So, having said that, what of Caspar Babypants' latest collection of songs, Baby Beatles?  Is this just a cop-out, the kindie equivalent of digging into the Great American Songbook as a final musical cash grab?

Let's answer that last question with a firm "no."  As he noted in a recent essay, Chris Ballew, the Caspar Babypants mastermind, owes a great deal of his musical career to the inspiration of the Beatles.   It is better, perhaps, then to view this album as an homage to the lads from Liverpool and their songs, and in that regard Baby Beatles works quite nicely.

Ballew's entire Babypants career has been dedicated to making music for the youngest listeners -- while he certainly would welcome the kindergarteners who want to dance along, he's more interested in their younger siblings.  So while he's always been interested in stripped-down arrangements, that becomes even more important in a covers album where the tricky part is retaining the song's essence while giving the artist's own spin.  That's especially tough given how familiar some of these songs are. 

For the most part, I think Ballew succeeds, usually by making the songs nimble and as light as a feather, even more so than his previously-released songs.  "Here Comes the Sun" is peppier than the original, an incredibly joyful way to kick off the album (his version of "Ob La Di Ob La Da" with Jen Wood gives me similarly happy feelings).   I love the use of faint handclaps on "Birthday."  "Blackbird" hews very closely to the original, but why wouldn't it when it's so perfect to begin with?

I'm not enthused with every reworking -- "Yellow Submarine" and "Octopus's Garden" in particular sound too thin -- but the hits here exceed the misses.  And while some of the song choices seem odd and perhaps picked because of their ostensible ties to childhood ("Mother Nature's Son," "Little Child," "Cry Baby Cry"), those choices at least prevent the album from just being a recap of the Beatles' greatest hits.

The 20-song has a runtime of about 48 minutes and is most appropriate for kids ages 1 through 4, though, c'mon, it's the Beatles.  Just about everybody will recognize at least some of these tracks. 

I don't think any Beatles cover album is essential -- just listen to the originals -- but Baby Beatles is just different enough to hold the listeners' attention far more than they would for some random (often Muzak-inspired) cover.  There is no such thing as a bad Caspar Babypants album, and while I look forward to the next album of his original music and less-well-known traditional songs, this will do quite nicely in the meantime.  Definitely recommended.

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

Itty-Bitty Review: Frog Trouble - Sandra Boynton

I'm a Sandra Boynton fan from way back, mostly for her simple and brilliantly funny illustrated books for young (pre-)readers, but also for some of her albums of family-friendly music.  She's tackled Broadway, rock, and retro on previous albums, and for her fifth collection of songs she's gone Nashville.

On Frog Trouble, Boynton and her musical partner, the arranger Michael Ford, offer up another dozen songs of often surreal and animal-based nature.  Take the unreliable narrator of "Frog Trouble" (or don't), or the meta-approach of "CopyCat"  (I think you can probably guess how a song with that title gets meta).  But a number of the songs, some of them the album's strongest, play it mostly straight -- Alison Krauss' lovely take on "End of Summer Storm" and Ryan Adams performing "When Pigs Fly," which takes that absurd premise and turns it into something beautiful.

Of course, the key for Boynton and Ford is finding the right artists for the songs.  They return to Krauss and Mark Lanegan, who've sung on previous Boynton albums, and many of the other choices are inspired, if not always totally country -- I'm not complaining that Ben Folds ("Broken Piano") and Fountains of Wayne ("Trucks") are on the disk by any means, and Brad Paisley is a good sport on "CopyCat."  Also: Kacey Musgraves singing anything is a good thing.  It's most appropriate for kids ages 6 and up.  You can find the 34-minute album anywhere and also in book form should you desire whimsical illustrations and sheet music.

One need not be a country fan to enjoy Frog Trouble ; a kid-like sense of humor and occasional taste for the absurd will suffice.  It's my favorite Boynton-Ford album.  Definitely recommended.

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

Monday Morning Smile: Lemony Snicket on Non-Kids Poems for Kids

Just as some songs not written for kids are perfect for kids (hi, Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child; hi, Greasy Kid Stuff!), some poetry not written for kids is perfect for kids. 

Or that's the assertion of Lemony Snicket (occasionally known as Daniel Handler), who wrote a wonderful article for Poetry Magazine.  His article, All Good Slides Are Slippery, features illustrations by Chris Raschka that are every bit as vibrant as Snicket is droll ("Poetry is like a curvy slide in a playground — an odd object, available to the public — and, as I keep explaining to my local police force, everyone should be able to use it...").

The article is definitely worth a read, and, I agree - those are some excellent poems to read to your kids, regardless of your stance on slides.