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Exploring Ella Jenkins - Growing Up with Ella Jenkins

The first of a series celebrating the birth month of the "First Lady of Children's Music", this takes a look at her album celebrating the importance of community


Photo: Smithsonian Folkways


This month marks the 97th birthday of one of the pioneers in the Family Music genre, Ella Jenkins, based in Chicago. She has inspired many generations of children's musical artists with her signature style of call-and-response songs and her personal reactions to young children that have resonated for generations.


This week, we will be looking at an album from Elle Jenkins that looks at communities and her own childhood, called "Growing Up With Ella Jenkins".


The first song here deals with communities and how important it is to our development and it is called "A Neighborhood is a Friendly Place". It celebrates how kindness and being a good friend is important to communities and is a throwback to the days of Mister Rogers and it reassures you of how a community can change your life. And it brings you back to your own childhood when you appreciated how kind your community was.


Speaking of her childhood, she also introduces us to two songs from her childhood that were derived from the "golden age of radio" during the 1930s, the theme tunes to "Little Orphan Annie" and "Barnacle Bill The Sailor".


Love for the family is also a key theme in this album as you will also hear a poem from her grandmother interspersed in this album. It serves as a very beautiful introduction to the wonderful world of poetry.


We also have a few classic nursery rhymes like Hickory Dickory Dock and Ten Green Bottles, all of which being given Ella's signature call-and-response touch. Then we have her goodbye song, Shake Hands with Friends, and you get a feeling that you will be back again with even more folk fun with Ella Jenkins.


All in all, this is an album full of fun, learning, adventure, and most importantly, playing along.


All this month, I'll be celebrating different Ella Jenkins albums and giving you my thoughts on the experience of listening to Ella's wonderful folksy music.



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