The Enchanting Ella Jenkins: Having Fun and Inspiring Your Child's Interest in Music (continued)

Fred Koch, teacher and founder of BestChildrensMusic.com (www.bestchildrensmusic.com), has known Ella for 25 years. He says, “One of her many gifts is the ability to involve adults, usually parents at a concert, in music making. This is no small feat since most adults are reluctant to be musical. Ella gets them up on stage with their children and before they know it, they are singing and dancing and enjoying music the way it is meant to be – as a community building activity. Ella’s easygoing way and her program selection of childhood favorite songs are tools she incorporates to create the welcoming aura that surrounds her.”

Tom Paxton agrees: “What I love about Ella is that even as she was receiving a Lifetime Achievement award at the Grammys she was teaching the audience a children's song, complete with gestures. She had all the industry heavies (including, so help me, Van Cliburn) milking the cow. Nobody but Ella!”

Ella’s joy in music and exuberant interest in the world is evident in her everyday life. As Cathy Fink recalls, “Several years ago, Ella and I were having lunch and discovered we shared a love of yodeling and songs of the early cowboy and cowgirl singers. We yodeled our way through the meal. A few folks are probably still wondering what was in the dessert!”

Fred Koch sums up Ella Jenkins’ legacy well: “Ella is an institution – a national treasure, and a true pioneer of this overly saturated genre of children’s music. If you analyze her success, it comes down to the simple belief and philosophy that has guided her all of her career - music is something to be shared – be it as intimate as a mother singing to a child or as big as an auditorium filled with parents and children singing together.”

For more information about Ella Jenkins, visit www.ellajenkins.com.

Parents' Choice Award-Winning Ella Jenkins Recordings:

cELLAbration! A Tribute to Ella Jenkins
Ages: All Ages
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, $12.00

Ella Jenkins, who has been sharing her love of music-all kinds of music-with young children for decades, was honored for her efforts at this year's Grammy Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the first children's music artist to be so honored. This delightful CD, produced by family music veterans Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, pays lively tribute to this still-active children's music pioneer in another way. It features a host of Jenkins' noted friends and admirers singing 18 songs closely associated with her, some she wrote, some from her vast collection of folk and world music.

Sharing Cultures with Ella Jenkins
Ages: 3 - 10 yrs.
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, $12.00

Ella Jenkins has been making music (and recordings) for longer than most of the parents of today's young children have been alive. If anyone deserves to be called a legend, it's Ella. The 28 selections on this album are a blend of traditional and original songs, instrumentals, and poems in a mixture of Spanish and English. The performances by children from the LaSalle Language Academy of Chicago who participate in many of the cuts add an unstudied charm that invites young listeners into the circle of songs.