Rocker gives up the grit to make kids’ music

Waylon Jennings and Collin Raye did it. Keb’ Mo, Harry Connick Jr. and Dom DeLuise have done it. John Lithgow has made it a part-time occupation. It seems to have become almost obligatory for artists to make at least one kids’ album.

Dan Zanes, former lead singer of the high-profile, gritty 1980s Del Fuegos rock band, however, crossed over and stayed. “I feel like I found my calling,” the raspy-voiced rocker said, “but it found me, really.”

Zanes’ first children’s album, “Rocket Ship Beach,” was released in 2000 to high praise in the national media; it was followed by the well-received “Family Dance” and the recent release “Night Time!,” all on Zanes’ Festival Five Records label.

On Saturday and Sunday, his “Dan Zanes and Friends” family concert tour goes to the La Jolla Playhouse.

Crafting songs with kids in mind “was daunting to think about,” Zanes said. “But the well had run dry as far as writing songs about my old girlfriends went, and eventually, things started coming up. It’s been very freeing.”

Parenthood, as so often happens, was the catalyst for change. Browsing the children’s sections in record stores after the birth of his daughter Anna, now 8, Zanes was disappointed to find that much of what was available was TV- or movie-related. He was looking for something specific: Call it a 21st century take on traditional folk music with an informal, communal feel. He wanted “updated versions of the music I grew up with -- Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Ella Jenkins -- records that sound like someone made them in their house.”

He began to make his own “handmade” music, music that would work for adults without losing children. The result has been playful, often wistful songs of shared experiences and Americana, about thrift shops, Ferris wheels, fireflies and neighborhood idylls.

“I always thought things had to have this kind of edge to them,” Zanes said. “Now I’m just trying to write about things that are meaningful to me.”

Fired, too, with a desire to help keep older tunes alive for another generation, Zanes added American pop standards and multicultural folk songs to his mix. He found a warm, familial sound in his Brooklyn home that doubles as a recording studio, with an eclectic group of professional and nonprofessional friends.

These include assorted children; the “Sandy Girls,” West Indian nannies who taught him songs of their childhood and are featured with him on each album; as well as professional artists such as Barbara Brousal and Father Goose (a.k.a. Rankin’ Dan); the Latino hip-hop Rubi Theater Company; and such drop-in guest singers as Suzanne Vega, Aimee Mann, Sheryl Crow and Sandra Bernhard.

Zanes no longer keeps his distance from the audience. His concerts are as much dance party as sing-along.

“Dancing and singing cover such a range of entertainment and communal activity,” he said, “and that’s been the real pleasure: The wall that used to exist between my old band and the audiences is no longer there, and we do everything we can to keep it from ever being there again. The more it’s like a little Grateful Dead show, the happier I am.

“Making music together is a fundamental way that we connect with each other. It brings people together; TV doesn’t, computers don’t.”

He hopes that grown-ups as well as children pick up on that. “It doesn’t take much and it’s fun, getting together with your friends, playing a couple of tunes with your family,” Zanes said.

No one is more surprised than Zanes at the “funny little twist” his life has taken. “I feel that I have more to give doing this than I ever had doing rock ‘n’ roll, and musically I’m more satisfied than I ever was.”

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‘Dan Zanes and Friends’

Where: La Jolla Playhouse Forum, La Jolla Village Drive at Torrey Pines Road, UC San Diego campus, La Jolla.

When: Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Ends Sunday.

Price: $10 for adults; $7 for kids 2-10; children younger than 2, free.

Info: (858) 550-1010