ROCK THE TALMUD : Children’s Entertainer Craig Taubman Sets Jewish Precepts to Contemporary Beats

Childhood recollections are a hot ticket with children’s singers. A first crush, a fishing trip with grandpa, a no-hitter pitched on a perfect summer’s day--all are prime grist for the music mill.

And a good songwriter can mold those memories into something that reaches beyond just a few grade levels to touch older siblings, parents, maybe even grandparents.

Craig Taubman, better known to kids as the star of the children’s pop rock band Craig ‘n Company, aspires to that kind of writing in songs like “Haircut” and “Do Bullies Have Mommies?” Taubman interweaves his childhood experiences with snippets of his own kids’ lives in a way that keeps the younger fans bopping while coaxing more than a few toe-taps and chuckles from adults. Since signing on with Disney’s Music Box Artist Series label last year (he’s released three recordings with them so far; the latest, “Rock ‘n Toontown,” will make its debut Tuesday), Taubman has been cultivating a growing audience nationwide, appearing everywhere from mini-malls to last Sunday’s Children for the Rain forest concert at the Greek Theatre, where he shared the bill with Sting and Bobby McFerrin.

On Saturday at Santa Ana’s Temple Beth Sholom, Taubman will again mine his past, but this time he’s digging much deeper. Instead of haircut stress or schoolyard bullies, Taubman will musically explore his Jewish roots with original tunes based largely on the writings and precepts of his faith. Presented as part of the temple’s Friends of Jewish Music series, the 1 1/2-hour concert is geared primarily to teen-agers and adults, although Taubman says children as young as 5 or 6 may enjoy it.

Taubman, 35, said his rock- and R&B-style; Jewish music is a way to make the ancient teachings more accessible to modern audiences.

“There is wisdom here that people have derived for thousands of years,” he said by phone from his Sherman Oaks home. “I’m just interpreting it in a medium that people our age can relate to. For me, that medium is music.”

Taubman said he bases each song on a familiar Jewish teaching, which he sings in Hebrew and English before spinning off with his own modern interpretation of the words. The result is meant to be inspirational for people of all faiths.

“My Jewish stuff is not preachy,” said Taubman, who has released eight Jewish music recordings on his Sweet Louise label and has another in the works. “It’s not ‘Yeah, Jews, let’s go out and get ‘em.’ It’s ‘Yeah, people.’

“It’s empowering. And that’s what my kids’ music is at its best.”

Taubman has been writing songs since his grade school days. His first recording came at 17, when his principal at Los Angeles Hebrew High School approached him about creating an album for the school. It sold 5,000 copies.

“I was bitten by the bug,” recalled Taubman, adding that the teacher “said, ‘Craig’s not into Jewish text or prayer . . . he’s into music, so let’s give him a chance to use that.’ He gave me the most important thing a teacher can give a child, which is teaching them that the powers to create are in themselves.”

Taubman continued his work in Jewish music between studies at Cal State Northridge, L.A.’s University of Judaism and Hebrew University in Israel, and later went on to found Yad B’ Yad, a performing arts touring company for Jewish teen-agers, an experience that helped him significantly in his children’s singing career.

“I credit (Yad B’ Yad) to a large extent for my ability to write for children,” said Taubman, who has a son, Noah, 4, and daughter, Abigail, 3. “When I wrote for the troupe, the kids would tell me their stories and then I would put things together with that from my own memory. I learned how to look at their experiences through music.”

Although he bemoans the lack of good Jewish recordings for young children, Taubman says he doesn’t predict that Craig ‘n Company will release one anytime soon on the Disney label, although he would consider self-producing one in the future. (“Disney has been great,” he said, “but they are a mass marketer and 50,000 albums probably wouldn’t cut it.”)

Taubman says that often he finds inspiration in Jewish text for both children’s and Jewish music (or as his band jokes, “the kiddish and the Yiddish”), but there is little crossover between the two styles. The exception: “One,” a tune he recorded with Craig ‘n Company on their “Rock ‘n Together” album and that he regularly performs in his Jewish concerts.

The song “says we all have a communal responsibility,” Taubman said. “That happens to be a Jewish precept, but it’s also Christian (and) Unitarian.

“It’s basically a statement of community, that there is something bigger than us, and that thing is us.”