Good kids' music

[ELM]

Anyone have suggestions about good collections of kids' music? My dd is 10 months old. I've bought a few cds (used) for her and have been pretty disappointed. What I don't want is: stuff with strong synthesized-drum beats or insipid versions of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Thanks for your recommendations!

ELM

[kel]

"Songs for Singing Children" by John Langstaffe (sp?) is great! I love listening to it, too. Its a lot of cool old folk songs. Also - "A Child's Celebration of Folk Music". Its a bunch of different artists, including Doc Watson, and Taj Mahal. A couple of the songs are annoying, but most of them are wonderful and fun to dance to, too.

[jasnjakesmama]

We have been playing music for Jacob since he was in utero. We don't just limit ourselves to kids music either. We listen to everything from the Beatles to Stevie Ray Vaughn to Nirvana. I think it's good to expose kids to all kinds of music. I did that with my older daughter and she has the most eclectic taste in music!

But you did ask for kids music and I do have some suggestions. Have you ever heard of Buckwheat Zydeco? They are awesome. Great for kids. We have Choo Choo Boogaloo. It's a very fun CD.

Of course there is always Raffi. Very cute and great to sing along to. We have about 4 of his CD's. They always do the trick. Raffi can make a fussy baby smile.

We also have a really cool CD by a local artist, Dan Zane. I think it's called Rocket Ship Beach. It's got a reggae Mother Goose song that is very cool.

Old Motown is great for kids. How about the Jackson Five?

~jennifer

[BathrobeGoddess]

Free to Be You and Me! It was my fav as a small kido and my dd's fav for a long time, too.

[peggy]

My children listen to all sorts of different music. Classical, Rock, "Kids" music etc.
They have a great selection at www.musicforlittlepeople.com


peggy

[lojoma]

Charlotte Diamond. She has a website, I think its just charlottediamond.com Very fun, smart, humorous and multi-lingual sing alongs for kids.

[Moon Stander]

I like Jim Gill and Peter Stewert.

[TreeLove]

My guys totally dig:
Pete Seeger
Leadbelly
Bob Dylan (esp the early stuff)
Arlo Guthrie
Jerry Garcia
David Grisman
anything w/banjos and mandolins and/or harmonica
Carol King's really Rosie.
Not Just for Kids is a far-out CD.

I think kids dig bluegrass to those ugly synthesized crudd CDs anyday. They know real music when they hear it. Try Woody guthrie or Roscoe Holcomb.

[lil' love]

RAFFI

I love Raffi and so do my kids (fortunately ) lol

He makes them smile and that makes me smile

This is what my kids listen to mostly. We even have a couple videos!
My daughter is 21 months old and she has just started to sing along. It's great.

[lavender]

We love Raffi, too, and have several of his cds!!! I have to second Pete Seeger, Garcia/Grisman (Not forKids Only), and Buckwheat Zydeco as well. Besides that...

Green Chili Jam Band (Starfishing, Coconut Moon, and Magic Bike are their three albums--we have them all and they are well-loved)

Priscilla Herdman (we have Daydreamer, Moondreamer and Stardreamer--all great! Daydreamer is the best for play, the other two are good for winding down gradually)

John Denver-Trains

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Gift of the Tortoise

We also have some good lullaby collections: "Mediterranean Lullaby", "Soundscapes Lullaby" from Target, "G'night Wolfgang" from Music for Little People, and some classical guitar albums.

They love folk music like Brothers Four, Kingston Trio, or just mama on her guitar...

[Gigi]

We give thumbs up to Raffi in our house too!! (Oh no, now I'm going to have 'Baby Beluga' going thru my head for the rest of the night...!)

Another CD I can highly recommend esp. for babies and small children is 'Latin Lullabies'. An absolutely beautiful compilation of latin songs. I would play this every night for my dd as I gave her her evening massage. We stopped playing it so much as she got older - but I pulled it out the other day and played it again. I cried (I'm such a nostalgic sap).

[SoHappy]

If you've never heard Ivan Ulz, track him down! His website's down right now, but bookmark it for later.
http://www.ivanulz.com
He has the greatest songs, including Firetruck, the belly button song, Pick it Up, and others. He's also a totally cool man. He does free concerts in our area often. From what I can tell, he's an aging hippy with psychedelic roots (in his psyche, not his scalp. The roots in his scalp are just normal gray.)

[glh]

We love Raffi too, I feel like I have been listening to him forever. Oh yeah, I have been, and now I still have a few years to go!

My 5 yr old also loves a CD called World Playground. At first he didn't like it (not all the songs are in English) but now it is his favorite CD.

[Hawkemom]

DS (10 months) loves music! He adores baby Beluga by Raffi and Songs for Wiggleworms.

I just got Fiesta Songs Sesame Street (good intro to Spanish words) but it is a short CD. The French CD made by Music for Little People has great kids songs (Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald etc.)

I'd love to hear any additional music/language cds you guys reccomend.

Happy Saturday!

[rainsmom]

good kids music

Ive been on a mission since I was pregnant to find childrens music I could stand to listen to over and over again. Here is a list of what Ive found:

Peter Himmelman - My Best Friend is a Salamander
My Fabulous Plum

Taj Mahall- Shake Sugaree

Shawn Colvin - Holiday songs and Lullabyes

Nicolette Larson - Sleep Baby Sleep

Garcia/Grisman - Not For Kids Only

Various Artists - Daddy-O Daddy Songs of Woodie Guthrie

Willie Nelson - Rainbow Connection

Keb Mo' - Big Wide Grin

[peacemama]

My daughter's current favorite is Peter, Paul and Mary. They did two collections for kids, called Peter, Paul and Mommy, and Peter, Paul and Mommy Too. We have the first one, with "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and "The Marvelous Toy." She LOVES it.

DD also loves Raffi, and we had that wonderful World Playground CD until it got stuck in my CD player and we can't get it out - it's been almost a year!!!!

We take Music Together classes and the music is excellent.

[zealsmom]

another vote for Free to Be You and Me! I love it; dh loves it; ds loves it; and I teach first grade (for the last 8 years) and they love it!

[ELM]

Great ideas (and a few more)

Wow! Thanks for your ideas. I will definitely investigate -- and invest in -- some of your suggestions.

Here are a few we DO like:
- Sharon, Lois and Bram. We have their greatest hits collection, which is not bad.
- The Planet Sleeps -- a collection of lullabies from around the world.

[jempd]

I second the Dan Zane cd. I was going to mention it and see that you got to it already, Jennifer. I wanted to mention also, for those of you who live in the Eastern NJ, NYC area, there's a great kid show on saturday mornings on WFMU (91.1 on the fm dial) called Greasy Kids Stuff that dh and I used to listen to even before we had a kid. It's very very silly and has a lot of obscure, strange stuff, like Green Eggs and Ham read aloud, lots of Japanese girl band songs about food, the alphabet song set to power pop, kids doing call ins, jokes etc. It has that ecstatic sense of the goofy that 4 year olds seem to be so plugged into . . . oh to be 4 years old again!

My baby and dog both seem to be calmed by bluegrass for some reason, maybe the softly strumming guitars and plunking banjos. A couple of people have told me that the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou is great for kids.

[Lila]

My dd's favourite is bluegrass. She loves Alison Krauss (good girl) and the sdtk from O Brother Where Art Thou. Our family is steeped in bluegrass tradition, tho. It's in her blood.

We also like Raffi. Singable Songs For The Very Young is excellent.

I also have a CD called Zydeco. Good Cajun music. Great rhythm, gets the babe moving!