CD Review

Dan Zanes & Friends
Rocket Ship Beach
(festival five records)

OK, right now, buy it. This is a kids' album that is everything a kids' album should be, and you'll want to give it to everyone you know who has a kid - if you can bear to part with it. It's full of fun & nonsense, with no cuteness - even when the Sandy Girls - a chorus of 10 year olds - gets into the act. Ex-rocker Zanes picks wonderful traditional songs and brings them across with a combination of a plain, unadorned voice, campfire/rootsy production, and wonderful special guests. Imagine Suzanne Vega singing "Erie Canal" or Sheryl Crow singing "Polly Wolly Doodle" (one reader chimes in: "clearly the rockin' version of polly wolly doodle on the album is like one of the 3 best versions of any song ever recorded by mankind..."). There's also a Ska version of your favorite nursery rhymes - and we're not talking the fake ska you get on a lot of "diversity" children's albums these days. My family's favorite is a version of "Froggie Went A'Courting" called "King Kong Kitchie." There are also versions of "Keep on the Sunny Side," "Goodbye Old Paint," "Sidewalks of New York" and "Mole in the Ground." It's a kind of wedding between city and country, Tin Pan Alley and Americana, which probably constitutes the real, lasting folk legacy of the last century. Even the packaging of this CD is attractive, with the case/booklet in the style of those cardboard books for babies. Having a newborn myself, I haven't taken my copy more than 12 inches from the CD player since it arrived - and that's because my wife and I can't stop listening - even when the baby's sleeping. Honest. -HB