Recess! Media

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That’s Jerry Garcia and David Grisman with their nonsense song, “Hopalong Peter.” It’s on a new CD called Bright Spaces 2, a compilation of songs from growing artists who are redeveloping that new/old genre that’s called family music. The collection is for the benefit of the Bright Horizons Foundation, which builds play spaces for children in shelters and seeks innovative ways “to comfort children and families in crises.”

Dan Zanes, one of the leaders of the family music movement, made the selections for this recording. Whether from Trinidad or England or Latin America, they’re all perfectly pitched. Some are traditional songs, like Sweet Honey in the Rock’s moving spiritual, “Little David Play on Your Harp.”

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Others are newer folksongs that sound like they’ve been around forever, like Elizabeth Mitchell’s “handmade” version, complete with rattle, of Woody Guthrie’s song for his new-born daughter, “Little Sack of Sugar.” Here’s how it starts.

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And, in the end, you can always go “Waltzing With Bears” with Bok, Muir, and Trickett and dear old Uncle Walter.

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