Customer Reviews

For Kids & Just Plain Folks

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a big Pete Seeger fan, but I was very disappointed with this album. The material is classic and very singable. This album, however, is live and features a VERY LOUD concert audience who sing along with the music, but not really in unison. They actually drown out Seeger's voice so that you can barely hear him. The result is very chaotic and hard to listen to even though I love the songs. This would have been a great concert to attend in person, but it is extremely annoying to listen to the recording.

Most of the tracks from this album feature stories by Pete Seeger complete with the interactions of the audience. As I listen to the catchy tunes (with my 2yr old daughter, who loves it), I feel transported back to the concert and drawn into Pete's wonderfully anecdotal world. I feel the audience background augments the experience. You can even use the tracks as a chance to educate a younger one on the world back in the late 60's/early 70's.

Not just great tunes, but great stories.

I have been humming the tunes on this CD ever since I bought it. I bought it to share with my one year old son. He seems to like "Put your Finger in the Air." I have found myself singing "Hobo's Lullaby" to him on several occassions. It is wonderful how much joy can come from one mans voice playing a small stringed intrument. The comments that Seeger makes regarding folk music and how it came to be are also quite nice. If you are looking for a toe tapper or blues buster this is one for you.

This is an excellent cd for the entire family. It introduces young children not only to american folk music but also folk songs from the English Isles and the experience of making folk music itself. Blue grass, banjo, guitar, and New york folk, are the order of the day. My kids, ages 2 and 7 love this album. In addition to its music literacy, one song with a politcal conscience provides a wonderful springboard for conversations with my 1st grader about our country's history of segregation and the hope that accompanies political activitism. I find nothing on this CD objectionable. Yes, the song about the Chesire cat is gory, but it has never struck my daughter as violent and she listens intently. I think it is because it has a mythical quality to it and a sense of being from another time and place. I also do not find the audience annoying. If anything, the fact that the album is live helps to convey Pete Seeger's warmth and charm. Our family is indebted to Mr. seeger for this musical exploration of a certain sector of american culture.

There are some wonderful songs on this album and my children love singing along. As one listener pointed out, the clapping by the concert audience is annoying (to me, not to my children). The froggy song is violent, but the children (ages 4 and 2) don't "get it." The chorus (Here's to cheshire, here's to cheese) is actually very sweet. I honestly don't think that they are learning violence from this song anymore than they are learning to eat eels from another song on this album.

My husband, two year old, and I find this CD to be virtually unlistenable. The songs (classic folk songs, one of the reasons this CD seemed like a perfect choice) are performed in such a way as to render them impossible to sing along with. For example, Seeger often simply recites the lyrics over the faint sounds of the audience singing them. The song "Weemoweh" contains none of the lyrics, just the chorus over and over and over, which is incredibly irritating. To top it all off, the CD contains a "sequel" to the classic "Froggie Went A-courtin'" that is completely inappropriate for children. In this song, the wedding ends in a bloody massacre in which all the animals are mutilated or killed by a cat. I am not making this up, although I wish I were.

Undoubtedly, Pete Seeger is one of the great musical/political wonders of our time and he really is a great man (I saw him perform live in New York right after he had been let out of prison)

...but I really don't like this album and I'll tell you why... when I was growing up in the 80s, my parents would always quote 'Be Kind To Your Parents' and I realized that they were right but make no mistake, the song 'Be Kind To Your Parents' itself is not good... it's not good at all... and it feels kind of like a feeble attempt to achieve a folk/goodie goodie kind of idiom that could make me... well I won't even go there..