Song Set Affirms Black Cultural Traditions

A bountiful new entry into the increasingly sophisticated children’s music market is “Shake It to the One That You Love the Best, Play Songs and Lullabies from Black Musical Traditions.”

This sleek boxed set with audio cassette and full color songbook, distributed by Berkeley-based Lancaster Productions, offers a cornucopia of familiar and unfamiliar children’s songs, illustrated by two leading black women artists and arranged in jazz, reggae, R&B;, blues, gospel and classical styles.

Reached at her Northern California home, creator/producer Cheryl Warren Mattox said the package was designed to “offer an awareness of black music and art from a child’s perspective,” and to supply a missing component in the children’s music market: black-oriented product.

“When my son was born, I wanted something for him, part of my tradition,” Mattox said.

As a musician, and music programmer, producer and host at classical music station KQED-FM in San Francisco, Mattox planned “a special radio segment on kids’ music from the perspective of black traditions,” and then found nothing available in the stores.

Mattox decided to try to fill the void herself.

She began with songs fondly remembered from her own musical childhood--her mother was her first piano teacher and there were 11 children in her family who “played musical games under the tree in the front yard.” She canvassed friends and researched African, Creole and Caribbean songs.

The vividly illustrated songbook contains the place of origin, historical context and/or game instructions for each song.

“Some of the songs, such as ‘Little Sally Walker’ and ‘Mary Mack,’ are familiar to many different cultures, (so) some song origins might be questionable,” Mattox acknowledged. “I included songs known outside the black tradition because they have become part of the black community--part of the tradition that parents pass down to their children.”

Mattox said her musical arrangements emphasize the diversity of the black musical experience. “In ‘Little Sally Walker,’ for example, I use a jazz quartet, keyboards, saxophone, piano and percussion. In ‘Jump Shamador,’ a West Indies song, I use a reggae beat.”

She contrasts her classically based arrangements by using “a voice that has a more distinctly quote, unquote ‘black sound’--what most people associate with an R&B; sound.”

The vocalists are as diverse as the musical styles. Among them, folk/blues veteran Taj Mahal serves up a funky “Hambone” and velvet-voiced Linda Tillery sings lullabies, from “All the Pretty Little Horses” to “Ya, Ya, Ya,” a lilting caress from the Congo.

Mattox’s appreciation of black art is reflected in the songbook’s decorative borders--photographs of African textile patterns--and in the collage and pastel song illustrations, done by contemporary artists Varnette P. Honeywood and Brenda Joysmith. Mattox chose the artists, whose works can be seen “The Cosby Show” “Amen” and “227,” “because they portray black family life and children at play in a way that captures the essence of the black experience.”

Mattox stresses that, while it is meant to affirm black culture, “Shake It to the One that You Love the Best” has no racial barriers. “It is something all kids can have fun with,” she said. “My hope is that it may stimulate an interest in something bigger--that it will encourage families to enjoy and learn about black art and black music.”