Rounder / Umgd
2007
My Green Kite
About This Album
It took a long while but singer and songwriter Peter Himmelman found another way to make a living by making family records, particularly those that engage children. On the club and small theater circuit during the 1990s, he was clearly not cut out for the music biz game. It had nothing to do with him except that he had perhaps too much personal integrity to play the shuck-and-hustle major-label game that was part of the beginning of the end of the conventional music biz. He made a slew of fine recordings in the 1990s and has continued in the 21st century, from Synesthesia, Flown This Acid World, and the conceptual Skin to Imperfect World in 2005. All of them were high-quality, literate, and full of fine material that was no one's but his own. He just wouldn't sell his songs and allow himself to be marketed as someone he wasn't. He made his first children's record, My Best Friend Is a Salamander, in 1998 and he hasn't stopped. My Green Kite is truly a family record. While there are melodies for kids and stories that draw them in, the themes are timeless: check "Another Bite of Hay" or "My Father's an Accountant." The wild and woolly skiffle and rockabilly of "A Dozen Roses" has more for parents than kids, but the tune is catchy as all get-out.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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