New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) Songs of GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Winner's
Chicago Childhood Out February 2011 as part of Smithsonian Folkways' African American Legacy Series and the Smithsonian-wide celebration of
Black History Month.
On February 22, 2011, the African American Legacy recording series, a joint production of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, will release 'A Life of Song' from musician and educator Ella Jenkins, known as "The First Lady of Children's Music."
On 'A Life of Song,' her 29th release for the label since 1957, Jenkins offers stories and songs that speak to her years growing up as an African American child in multicultural Chicago. Children from Chicago's Donoghue Elementary and Horace Greeley Elementary schools join her in call-and-response singing on well-known songs including "Pick a Bale of Cotton" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," a world that in Jenkins' version includes Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Sacajawea, and John F. Kennedy. The album's 21 tracks also include songs from Ella's 1920s Chicago childhood such as "One Two Three O'Leary," which in this rendition is sung both in English and Spanish. 13 songs from 'A Life of Song' were recorded by Ella for the first time for this release.
Jenkins also sings on her own and accompanied by Rita Ruby's guitar and vocals on affecting tracks including the spirituals "I Want to Be Ready" and "Sing Low, Sweet Chariot"; plays "Milk Cow Blues" on harmonica; and, accompanied by her own drumming, chants a litany of "Black Royalty," including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Queen Latifah and empress of the blues Bessie Smith.
Ella Jenkins has received many awards over her long career, including a 2004 GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2005 GRAMMY Award for Best Musical Album for Children. She was the first woman and first children's musician to receive the ASCAP Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, earned a 2009 United States Artists award, and has appeared numerous times on "Sesame Street," "Barney and Friends" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Her 1966 album 'You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song' is the best-selling title in the history of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the title song was added to the National Recording Registry in 2007 by the Library of Congress.
Parenting magazine has said that Jenkins' "simple but irresistible songs, poems, and mini-language lessons... reflect the beauty of diverse cultures." 'A Life of Song' tells Ella Jenkins' musical story as entrancingly as she has told stories in song to children for half a century.
Track Listing for Ella Jenkins' 'A Life of Song':
1. Pick a Bale of Cotton
2. One Two Three O'Leary
3. Calling a Square Dance
4. Black Royalty
5. Little Sally Walker
6. Cotton-Eyed Joe
7. I Want to Be Ready
8. He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
9. Sing Low, Sweet Chariot
10. Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham
11. Standing in the Need of Prayer
12. Amazing Grace
13. Somebody's Talking About Freedom
14. Sadie Complete
15. Uncle Flood and the Blues
16. Milk Cow Blues
17. Summertime
18. The Cuckoo
19. The Farmer in the Dell
20. This Is Your Year, Children
21. I'm On My Way to Canaan Land
For more information about the 2011 celebration of Black History Month by the Smithsonian Institution, please visit:
https://www.smithsonianeducation.org/heritage_month
