Copyright 2018 RounderIt’s always great news when there’s a new CD from Raffi, the beloved troubadour whose music has delighted families for decades, making him the perennial best-selling children’s entertainer. On July 27, 2018, Raffi’s 25th album will be released, with 15 new songs.
Raffi, who turns 70 this summer, recorded the music in his home, inspired by his dog Luna, who is the subject of three of the new songs. You can see him on tour and follow him on Twitter. He is working towards a September 2018 launch of an online course in Child Honouring-an original philosophy for redesigning society for the greatest good by meeting the universal needs of the very young. He works on behalf of children and their families in a variety of initiatives, including the Center for Partnership Studies, the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment, and the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development, and he is the recipient of the Order of Canada and the United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award.
Please check out You Sang My Song on Facebook. Glamour asked top recording artists like Maria Carey, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Shawn Mendes, and Meghan Trainor to watch YouTube covers of their songs. The only thing more touching than seeing these platinum singer-songwriters appreciate their fans (many of them say, “She sang it better than I do!”) is seeing the reaction of the YouTube singers to the comments from their favorite performers. It’s a remarkable moment because they stop being superstar to fan and become singer/musician to singer/musician, a deep and intimate connection. It’s wonderful.
Brady Rymer’s tuneful new holiday album for families is Revvin’ Up the Reindeer. In an interview, he shared his own family’s favorite holiday traditions and the inspiration for his songs about untangling Christmas lights and rainbow candles for Hanukkah.
You have toured with some of the greats — what did you learn from performing with them in front of such huge audiences?
Copyright 2017 Bangin’ Out a Melody Music
My grown-up group From Good Homes did a very special tour with Bob Weir back in 1995. He was one of my idols growing up — his rhythm guitar playing was very inspirational — so here I am with my buddies in a band, years later sharing the stage with him – it was incredible! We were on tour with Bob the day Jerry Garcia passed away, and I remember the show after Jerry passed Bob saying, “Let’s go on and do our thing. Jerry would want it that way.” That night, I saw the power of music to heal, communicate, connect us all. Giving us joy, sadness, hope to carry on – it was all there as we celebrated through song an artist that we all loved and who gave so much of himself. Later on the tour, I asked him how he had kept going after all of these years (roughly 30 at that point). He simply said, “You gotta have fun.” He said he wouldn’t be doing it all these years if it wasn’t fun. So, guess you can just take it from the good ol’ Grateful Dead: Just go out there and do what you do and have fun! Don’t try to be something that you’re not — share your passion and talents in an honest way.
How are kid audiences different from grown-ups?
I struggle with this one because in a lot of ways they are similar. They all wanna get rockin’. They both wanna see the band having fun, and they both like to dance. Both grown-ups and kids have been known to get rowdy; they both wanna hear their favorite songs, they both wanna connect with the artist and each other and experience something. One difference is that it’s hard to do the longer improvisational and instrumental stuff for the kids! No space jams for them! Ha! But I don’t know, maybe it would work if I just asked them all to pretend they were all ballerinas for the next 10 minutes. At the core they seem the same. We are always trying to connect with our music and songs and as people. At live concerts, we are all together for a little amount of time, singing, dancing and experiencing something magical together.
I don’t think there’s ever been a song about untangling Christmas tree lights before — what inspired that?
That’s one of my holiday tasks! Year after year I get to untangle the lights and hang ‘m on the tree – aren’t I lucky! So, a few years back I was untangling a particularly knotted, stubborn batch when I just started singing to help manage the time and frustration. I recorded a little bit of it, and you can hear on the tape the sound of the lights being untangled. That version actually became the basis for the final song, I went back to it when I was writing the lyrics. The original tape of me singing was about 50 minutes long, so we had to cut it down a bit for the album!
Why is music such an important part of celebrating Christmas?
So much emotion, memory, is wrapped up in the holiday music. When you hear it again it opens up and hopefully you open your heart to a sweet time and some magical feelings. Music is a great way to spread the love and cheer. It just seems to mix well with the snow, chill, peace, hope and magic that comes around each holiday season.
What are some of your family’s favorite holiday traditions?
Cooking (& eating)! We usually host lots of family. My wife, Bridget & I love planning a different menu each year, and we create special cocktails to serve, etc. Now that our two kids are older they are involved as well — suggesting recipes and helping along. I also love getting up every Christmas morn to see what kind of surprise Santa has left each year. Last year, because it was so warm on Christmas, Santa moved our entire Christmas situation — the tree, all the presents, the stockings – everything was moved from the living room to our (typically freezing) enclosed deck space where the kids have been wanting to have Christmas since they were little. It was just too cold in past years. So, how did Santa know that the weather was perfect last year? It was so crazy when the kids ran into the living room on Christmas morn expecting the tree and all the presents to be there… they yelled, “Santa! Where’s our Christmas?!”
What was the first instrument you ever learned to play?
Well, I played the baritone horn in elementary school for a bit but it had a hard time competing with a shiny, cool (and loud) electric guitar! Led Zeppelin riffs were not being played on the baritone horn. Around the same time (5th or 6th grade) my brother and our friends also picked up guitars, basses and pianos & we started a rock band. It was the thing to do. After a few nights in my parents’ garage we had a few songs down. That was it for me – I loved it.
What was the first rock concert you ever attended?
KISS with my dad & brother! Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ, July 10th 1976 – I’ve even seen it on Youtube! They were on their Destroyer Tour and the show started with explosions, and I loved the huge rock n roll sound and spectacle! It was incredible. It was a great bill. And the other bands left just as much impact — it was Bob Seger and the J Geils Band. Kind of a strange bill, but it worked. And wow, what a scene, so much to see at an outdoor rock concert in the 70’s! My head was spinning. I think my dad’s was too.
How do you approach writing a song for Hanukkah?
I remembered a book that was in my kids’ preschool classes called “Rainbow Candles.” I thought that would be a sweet thing to sing about and a great way to write about the holiday. I didn’t have any songs in waltz time so I tried it in ¾ time. I also wanted it to have a Klezmer flavor so it’s in a minor key.
What parts of the holiday are most music-friendly?
I knew I wanted to sing about kid-friendly Hanukkah treats like latkes and donuts, dreidel spinning and lighting the menorah. But I also wanted to express the feeling of love, hope, family and joy. The idea of a festival of lights is so lovely – the hope, promise, peace, that image & idea made its way into a few other holiday songs on the album as well. Those ideas became somewhat of a holiday theme. And as Bob Weir said – just trying to have some fun with it all.
Treasure Trove of Old Recorded Music: The Great 78 Project
Posted on September 5, 2017 at 8:00 am
The Great 78 Project is making available hours and hours of the earliest recorded music.
The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) have been made on 78rpm discs. While the commercially viable recordings will have been restored or remastered onto LP’s or CD, there is still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings. Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access. Started by many volunteer collectors, these new collections have been selected, digitized and preserved by the Internet Archive, George Blood LP, and the Archive of Contemporary Music.
We aim to bring to light the decisions by music collectors over the decades and a digital reference collection of underrepresented artists and genres. The digitization will make this less commonly available music accessible to researchers in a format where it can be manipulated and studied without harming the physical artifacts. We have preserved the often very prominent surface noise and imperfections and included files generated by different sizes and shapes of stylus to facilitate different kinds of analysis.
Copyright 2017 RounderThere is nothing better for building happy family memories than singing along with Raffi to classics like “Baby Beluga” and “Down by the Bay.” This collection of Raffi favorites, released February 10, 2017, with the best from 40 years of delighting children and their parents is sure to become a family essential. This is the best there is when it comes to music for families — a must-have for car trips and bedtimes. And with this new release, the kids who grew up with Raffi can share these timeless melodies with their own children.
Raffi will also be on tour, with family concerts in California in late January, Minneapolis and Chicago in April, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in May.
