Recess! Media

Brief Sound Clip

That’s part of the opening song for Elizabeth Mitchell’s new CD, You Are My Little Bird from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The 17 oh-sooo-mellow songs on this album draw on the rich legacies of folk music from America and other countries (like Japan, Korea, and Latin America). And Ms. Mitchell and her partners in song follow the modern travels that the spirit of this traditional music has taken with artists like Woody Guthrie and, more recently, The Velvet Underground, Bob Marley, Gillian Welch, and Neil Young.

Brief Sound Clip

Ms. Mitchell is joined on the recording by her husband Daniel Littleton, and their daughter, Storey, along with other Littletons and friends like John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful who does turns on autoharp and harmonica for numbers like the classic “Down in the Valley.” For this is a peaceful valley of songs, mapped by magical birds and gently flowing rivers of the spirit. Everything is gentle and calm down there. It’s a place you and your children will want to go to again and again, a place where you’ll know the songs of all of the birds.

Brief Sound Clip