Before there was Caspar Babypants, before there was Recess Monkey or the Not-Its!, there was Dan Zanes.
When the Brooklyn-based musician released his first family album, Rocket Ship Beach, in 2000, it was both unlike the CDs categorized under "children's music" at Tower Records, and it was a nod to the Folkways recordings of old.
"I couldn't find a certain sound that I was looking for, which was the updated version of the Folkways records I grew up with, which I could share with my daughter," Zanes says. "I couldn't find this particular sound that was in my head."
He decided to make that sound himself, and things took off from there. This week, Zanes released his first family album in five years, Little Nut Tree, which goes back to the mixed bag of musical styles and artists that won Zanes a Grammy in 2006 for Catch That Train. The unifying thread is a dedication to handmade music that brings together family and friends.
That dedication has won Zanes a following among parents desperate for children's music that they can actually enjoy listening to, and among fellow musicians, including some who have followed his path from indie rock to family music.
"Dan is really influential for me because, like Elizabeth Mitchell, he has a respect for old music and old themes that are timeless and have integrity, and I love to bring the strength of those old songs to kids," says Chris Ballew, singer/songwriter for the band Presidents of the United States of America, who creates his own children's music under the name Caspar Babypants. "His music really set me off on my path to finding my own sound rooted in the traditions of the past."
Zanes has inspired many of the kindie music bands in Seattle, including Recess Monkey.
"We've met Dan a few times playing shows, and he certainly is a legend in the kindie music world," says Jack Forman, a member of Recess Monkey. "He's absolutely earned his position as the king of kindie rock."
Zanes little imagined wading into the world of kids' music back in the 1980s when he was a member of the indie rock band the Del Fuegos. The birth of his daughter, Anna, who is now 16, set him on the family music path. He wanted to make the kind of music he wanted to play for his own child.
"I never once considered this to be children's music; the intention from the beginning has been to update what Leadbelly, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie had done, which I had always considered to be all-ages music," Zanes said.
Little Nut Tree starts out with a bouncy tune called "In the Basement," about the basement as the perfect place to "party all night long." Like much of his music, "In the Basement" feels like it was recorded in Zanes' house (in, perhaps, the basement), when a bunch of musicians and other friends just happened to drop by to jam.
That feeling, too, is intentional. Zanes, who grew up in New Hampshire, in what he describes as "a white monoculture" wants to share the diversity of people and music he found in Brooklyn.
"To live in New York and to be around so many people from so many parts of the world making music, this is how I get to learn about the bigger world in a way that I didn't when I was growing up," Zanes says. "It's a party where you're hanging out with a bunch of different people and telling stories. Music is the way that we get to tell those stories, and what a beautiful thing that is."
Included on Little Nut Tree are a Haitian song, "La Siren," that Zanes says he's been wanting to include on an album for a long time, as well as a Turkish song, "Salaam," that is in Arabic.
Also featured on the album are guest artists such as Joan Osborne, Sharon Jones, Andrew Bird and the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, who traveled to Brooklyn to record the title track of the album, made famous by the Jamaican group The Melodians.
Zane's circle of musical collaborators includes old friends and artists he admires.
"I reach out, but I don't have to do as much begging as I used to or as much explaining," he says. "The main thing is that it's music that I just love. Everyone that appears on the records is someone that I'm a huge fan of. So for me it's always the same as it was when Sheryl Crow came in in the very beginning. She lived right around the corner from me."
One thing that has changed over the years is that Zanes has seen some of his early kid fans grow up, just like his daughter has. He has seen evidence that his goal of inspiring people to make their own music is working.
"I know a lot of these kids go on to play their own music, and that's always been the goal for us, is that we can inspire people to make their own music," Zanes says. "The point is that people – whether it's through concerts or CDs – that people get excited about making their own music, telling their own their own stories."
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Little Nut Tree is available in local music stores and through Dan Zanes’ website, https://www.danzanes.com
Zanes has no firm plans to visit Seattle in the near future, although he says he has a huge fan base here. You can send an email encouraging him to come play a show here through his website, at www.danzanes.com/contact.
The best question left out of this story came from my 6-year-old daughter:
SC: How do you come up with all the silly songs you write?
Zanes: “I keep my ears wide open and usually the ideas are somewhere in the air around me, so I just grab them and write them down.”
– Ruth Schubert
