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Sleeve Notes
Children need music to grow on — music which they can take to their hearts and make part of their lives, the songs to grow on albums provide such music in offering songs of immediate appeal to children. As a child listens to the records, he will act out the lyrics, sing, and dance, and clap hands in response to the irresistible charm of the artists. The songs stimulate both the imagination and the creativeness of a child and introduce him to ways in which he himself may make music.
Songs To Grow On with Woody Guthrie is sung by him just as he sang for his own three-year old daughter. His lyrics, styled for the young, have the same directness and simplicity that characterize folk songs. The old fallacy that children's s0ngs should be dainty and sweet is completely exploded by woody's verses which are full of gusto and vitality. He combines delicious-sounding words with down-to-earth imagery and flavors the whole with humor. This album is an inspiration for a mother's own attempts at spontaneous song.
Songs To Grow On, Volume 2 The School Days album, draws upon the great wealth of american folk songs which are part of the heritage of every child. Those that were chosen for this recording appear in a printed collection, also titled songs to grow on, published by E.B. Marks Music Corporation, New York City. These are the songs children want again and again to sing, dramatize, and play on simple instruments. In addition to bringing gaiety and warmth to the daily business of growing up, they will establish a pleasant association with music that carries over into adult life.
The sixteen songs recorded in this album present enormous variety not only in subject matter but in manner of performance. There are five folk artists in all each of whom sings three or four songs alone before giving over to the next. Peter Seeger plays the banjo; Adelaide Van Wey, the auto-harp; Cisco Houston, the guitar; Charity Bailey, the piano; and Lead Belly, the guitar, each singer has a distinctive style and casts his own particular spell of enchantment; each contributes his measure to the success of the whole.
Through the actual experience of singing and dancing and dramatic action, of playing and listening to music, and creating one's own, children will have the music they need to grow on. It will be their's forever and will help to give them the spiritual enrichment necessary for calm living in a chaotic world.