childhood development Archive
31 Oct 2021
Album Review: Andrew Gold’s Halloween Howls

Musician, singer and songwriter Andrew Gold combined a commercial (read: broadly accessible) sensibility with superb songwriting chops. With so many years having passed, many forget (if they knew at all) that Gold was Linda Ronstadt’s band leader through one of her most creatively fertile periods. Speaking of forgetting, it’s too often forgotten now, but his
24 Oct 2021
Album Review: Alison Faith Levy — You Are Magic

Disclaimer: My children are in their late 20s and early 30s, so I am by no means the primary target demographic for this release. But I know good music when I hear it, and consider it my responsibility to share it. For a long time, much of the music aimed at kids was cloying, treacly
21 Jul 2019
Rock-a-bye Everybody: The Moon and You and Friends

The Moon and You – the Asheville-based wife and husband songwriter duo of Melissa Hyman and Ryan Fursternburg – has released four albums to date. But 2019 marks the addition of something very different to their body of work. Big Mystery, an all-local-star effort led by The Moon and You, is a studio collection of
12 Sep 2017
Album Review: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo — Mozartistic

At its best, kid-hop is a family friendly version of hip-hop, with lyrics full of universal appeal. Because while not everyone can identify with slice-of-life reality depicted in some rap and hip-hop, everyone has been a kid. Many still are. And at its best, kid-hop takes the form of the music made by sometime Asheville
06 Mar 2017
Album Review: Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans — Space Songs

This curio from 1961 was originally created to serve as an instructional record for children. The word that immediately comes to mind when hearing the vocals and instrumentation is “ginchy.” And while I’ll readily concede that “ginchy” is not a real word, it somehow seems to encapsulate the vibe of Space Songs. It’s easy enough