Songs for kids, adults of all ages

Not many children’s artists are reviewed in Esquire, but in this month’s issue of the upscale men’s mag, Ralph Covert’s new “Ralph’s World” CD, “The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro,” gets a thumbs up from music critic Andy Langer.

“When you strip away the lyrics about monkeys and dump trucks,” Langer writes, “you’re left with a pop record almost too good for its audience.”

All five kids’ CDs that Covert has recorded for the Mini Fresh Records label -- a subsidiary of Chicago independent label Minty Fresh (Papas Fritas, Veruca Salt) -- have received accolades for being smart music that parents can groove to along with their children.

Billboard Magazine called Covert’s 2001 debut album, “Ralph’s World,” “one of the finest kids’ audio releases in this or any year.”

Covert, whose success previously has drawn him to the West Coast for single family concerts here and there, will have his first extended L.A.-area gig, Nov. 13-27, doing Saturday-morning shows at a fitting venue for an artist with kid and adult appeal: El Cid, the eclectic Silver Lake restaurant club known for alternative music, jazz and other adult fare.

Slim, shaggy-haired and bespectacled, Covert, for years front man for top Chicago indie-rock band the Bad Examples, says that his approach to writing music for children isn’t much different from writing for adults.

“It’s all about not dumbing it down,” he explains. “You elevate it a little, write stuff that’s got content and is accessible. Even a silly song can have a good emotional center, strong chord changes, intersecting single melodies. Look at great jazz standards and pop stuff -- they do it so effortlessly. That’s my goal.”

“There’s so much music gurgling down in there in me,” he adds. “I really write to kind of inspire and please the little songwriter voice inside.”

“Treehouse Orchestra,” for example, a wistful song about rock instruments (“I’ve got some drums, some drums, some la-di-da-di-da, I’ve got some drums, I love to hear them play”) on his “Kid Astro” CD, came about when Covert was “fooling around at the piano and found a kind of harmonic contrast of bass and chords and melodies that just filled me with joy.”

“The Sun in My Eyes,” another “Kid Astro” track, with harmonics reminiscent of classic Crosby, Stills & Nash, was inspired by “the pure emotion I felt when those notes came together,” Covert says.

Covert’s evolution from indie rocker to kids’ music superstar began shortly after the birth of his daughter Fiona, nine years ago. A fan of his adult band recruited him for a “Wiggleworms” music-making program for moms and tots at Chicago’s venerable Old Town School of Folk Music, giving him a green light to use his own material.

“All the things I found boring about kids’ music, parents found equally boring, so I just rocked and had fun. It grew out of the joy of doing it and just goofing around.”

Performing adult rock and songs about dancing bears, puppies and belly buttons is “kind of like inhaling, exhaling: They’re both wonderful; they both give a lot back,” Covert says.

“As a creative artist, it’s: How do I smart it up, so that it’s that much more transcendent and translucent? How can you write a song that works musically, lyrically and emotionally in a way that a 5-year-old gets it and a 35-year-old gets it?”

He tells of riding in a car with a friend, listening to “The Amazing Romeo,” from Covert’s adult acoustic record “Birthday.” The friend’s 8-year-old asked what the song was about.

“It was really connecting with him,” Covert recalls. “I said, ‘It’s about a blind tightrope walker, about how you’re kind of balancing in life without quite knowing where you are.’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s like second grade.’ ”

That a young child could find meaning in a complex idea wasn’t surprising to Covert, who is intent on creating music that “tries to connect with people where they live,” no matter what their age, he says.

“It’s really about granting kids that respect.”

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Ralph Covert

Where: El Cid, 4212 Sunset Blvd., L.A.

When: 11 a.m. Saturdays

Ends: Nov. 27

Price: $10

Contact: (323) 668-0318