Folk Songs for Young People

Pete Seeger recorded a number of children's albums in his early solo career, some of which suffered from overt cuteness or too-elementary presentation. Perhaps this was consciously aimed at somewhat older kids, but those problems aren't a factor on this straightforward collection. The instrumentation (just Seeger and banjo) and recording (sometimes live, and often with spoken intros and outros) is basic, but the performances are respectfully enthusiastic and the selection of material diverse. Some of the songs are kiddie record staples ("Skip to My Lou"), "On Top of Old Smokey" and "Goodnight Irene," of course, were big numbers in Seeger's Weavers days, "Dayenu" is a Jewish religious number known to virtually everyone in that faith, and "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "John Henry" are traditional tunes hardly limited to children's music sets. The brief song satirizing a "Pepsi-Cola" jingle doesn't have currency now that the commercial is long in the past, though.