I’ve never thought of the Blues as particularly cheerful until I heard
Brooklyn’s Randy Kaplan sing Good Morning Blues, the first song on Loquat Rooftop. Amidst the amazingly nimble-fingered guitar work, I heard him
ask, Good morning blues….blues How do you do? to which a little voice shouted back, Good…hungry!
It’s that happy-go-lucky feel throughout that had me
wishing that Randy was sitting in our living room telling his stories
directly to the kids. Songs like the hilariously odd No Nothing
has a catchy chorus which makes me croon, I know nothing, you know nothing all day long. And, there is a whole funky orchestra of
instruments on this CD, from harmonica to trombone to banjo which crank
out music that is so darned good you won’t care that this is a kids’
CD. The tempo goes from the fast-and-furious Mazal Mazal, the little
girl with a “laugh so loud it bounces off the moon”, to the smooth and
mellow title song. There are even a few covers which
Randy makes into his own, like the bad-boy Charlie Brown, which, interestingly,
is my son’s favorite.
With a unique ability to create great songs out of such everyday matter
as laundry and ladybugs, I’m hopeful that Randy will be putting out CD’s
as long as my kids like to hear stories. And then some. –Christina
Ed note: This is absolutely one of my top ten favorite new kids albums of the year. So worth a listen. -Liz
Congratulations to Nicholle C, lucky winner of both of Randy’s CDs!
