Recess! Media

When I heard this, I thought I was a kid again, back in Chicago, on a Sunday morning in the 1950s, with the Polka Hour on the radio. This transporting, toe-tapping version of the old lullaby is from the Grammy Award winning singing – song-writing team of Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer on which they’ve teamed with other Grammy winners — the high energy group called Brave Combo — to produce a CD that is, to saw on the old cliche and to put it mildly, just pure, giddy infectious fun.

There are other old favorites, like “Funiculi, Funicula,” and “Chopsticks,” and the Israeli folk song, “Mayim, Mayim” — and everything has a different beat, a different step to it — along with polka, there’s salsa and calypso, swing and klezmer, twist and mariachi waltz, like the famous, moving, “De Colores,” that has back-up sung by the University Park Elementary School Ensemble:

Brief sound clip

There are songs that will delight kids, like “Spaghetti” and “I Will Never Clean Up My Room,” and wonderful fusion numbers that mix Celtic, old timey string band and who knows what else and that will have kids, parents, granny, Uncle Tony and Great Aunt Pearl all rolling up the rug to dance together: