John
Malveaux
of www.MusicUNTOLD.com sends a link to this story, from which we post an excerpt:
Smithsonian Magazine
July-August 2012
By Aviva Shen
Ella Jenkins’ repertoire of call-and-response songs have kept
generations of children singing along for more than 50 years. On most of
the folk songs Jenkins has recorded, children sing, yell, clap, and
whistle to the tune of her harmonica, ukelele or her warm alto vocals.
With no formal training, Jenkins drew on the sounds of her childhood in
the diverse working-class community of south Chicago, blending gospel,
blues, Latin dance music and nursery rhymes. Her distinct style earned
her the title of “First Lady of Children’s Music” and a Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award. On August 6 she’ll celebrate her 88th birthday and
her Life of Song, as her most recent album from Smithsonian
Folkways (2011) is rightly titled. Jenkins reflected on her love of
children and her own musical childhood in a phone interview with the
magazine’s Aviva Shen.
When did you get interested in music?
I’ve
always liked music. Even when I was a child in our neighborhood, we sang
and made up rhymes. It was very important to be able to carry a tune
and to learn songs. In the neighborhood I grew up in [in Chicago] there
was the Regal Theater, which had live entertainment. There were singers
and tap dancers. Tap dancing really intrigued me. Pretty soon I asked my
mother if I could go to one of the centers and learn how to tap dance. I
liked listening to the popular singers of the day. Most of the
children, if they like the singer, they try to imitate her
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