Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Stevie Wonder for Kids

I thought for the last day of Black History Month, I'd talk about something purely fun. I get a lot of requests from parents looking for children's music that won't drive them batty. These parents have ususally spent insane amounts of time listening to the typical, vacant, sing-songy variety of kids music that permeates the genre (you know the kind I'm talking about). It's usually when they catch themselves humming it on the way to work that they realize they would rather scrape melted gummy worms off the sofa than listen to another minute of this stuff.

Aside from sending them to Zooglobble and Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, I have another miracle cure for these desperate parents:

Stevie Wonder
(Cue angel choir and light streaming down from heaven)


First of all, Stevie Wonder was signed to Motown Records when he was just 11 years old. That is supercool by anybody's standards.

Second of all, go to iTunes and listen to/download Uptight. What kid wouldn't love to dance around to this song? What parent wouldn't love to dance around to this song? See? Problem solved!

A special treat:
This is from the 1973 season of Sesame Street. Now this is music! Pure energy. The video quality isn't the best, but YouTube has confiscated all the versions that were clear due to the recent lawsuits. Hm. A topic for another day. Enjoy this one while it lasts:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Sir Duke" is a favorite of ours on the show -- utterly appropriate for kids and will get everyone dancing.

Josephine Cameron said...

Yes! That is a great one & the entire album Songs in the Key of Life is terrific.