April variety show: Baseball!

The Deedle Deedle Dees Family Variety Show is going to celebrate the start of the season with a baseball program on April 10th. We're trying to get some players from the Brooklyn Cyclones to join us as well as a representative of the new Jackie Robinson museum they're opening on Varick Street. Let us know if you can help us with either of these things.

L

Our new variety show debuts this Saturday!

The Deedle Deedle Dees Family Variety Show

Debut show: Little Red Airplane!
A celebration of Women Who Fly, Fight, Write, and Rock!

FEATURING:
- The Deedle Deedle Dees performing songs about Nellie Bly, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Hanson Robinson, Sojourner Truth, Emily Roebling, Susan B. Anthony, and other women we admire. We'll also be performing a brand-new song based on Mathilda and the Orange Balloon by Randall de Sève!

- Randall de Sève, author of Toy Boat, reading from her new book, Mathilda and the Orange Balloon

- Kid singers and emcees

- The Red Hook Ramblers!

- Ali Hammer!

- Free balloons (orange ones, of course!)

- A goodie bag for every family

The Knitting Factory 361 Metropolitan Ave Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

$10 a person, $20 a family

upcoming variety shows: April 10, May 8

www.knittingfactory.com
www.thedeedledeedledees.com

The Deedle Deedle Dees / Red Hook Ramblers Winter Tour

The Deedle Deedle Dees and the Red Hook Ramblers are starting our two-week tour of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas this week. Below is the full schedule, including evening performances.

Who are the Red Hook Ramblers? The Ramblers are NYC's premier Dixieland band. Chris Johnson (AKA Booker Dee) plays banjo and piano with them. On our new album, the Ramblers play the horn parts on "Growl Growl," "Xu Lapi Knewel, New Jersey," and "Bring 'Em In." On the road, they'll be adding horns, guitars, lap steel, banjo, and other stuff to many more songs. And at night, the Deedle Deedle Dees will turn into their back-up band, performing old-timey jazz, blues, and other great party music. www.redhookramblers.com

Key to schedule below:
DDDs = Family concert featuring the Deedle Deedle Dees. Open to the public. Ages 0 and up.
RHRs = Old-time jazz/ blues/ soul / more. Nothing inappropriate for kids, but most of these shows will conflict with bedtime

Tuesday, Feb. 23 - Cleveland, OH
DDDs: Cleveland Heights Library 7pm (school-aged show)
www.heightslibrary.org
Weds, Feb. 24 - Cleveland, OH
DDDs: Cleveland Heights Library 11am (preschool show)
www.heightslibrary.org

Thurs, Feb. 25th - Knoxville, TN
DDDs: WDVX Blue Plate Special 12noon
Live radio taping with audience! They said we could invite a couple of elementary school classes but we haven't yet -- know any schools within walking distance of this studio?
http://www.wdvx.com/programs/blueplate.html

Fri, Feb. 26th - Little Rock, AR
DDDs - School shows all day
DDDs live on KARN News Radio, details soon

Sat, Feb. 27th - Little Rock, AR
DDDs: Clinton Presidential Library 10:30am
http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/

Sun, Feb. 28th - Nashville, TN
DDDs: Davis-Kidd Booksellers 2pm
2121 Green Hills Village Dr
Nashville, TN 37215-2601
(615) 385-2645

Tues, March 2nd - Lexington, KY
RHRs: Transylvania University 7pm
Open to students and faculty only.

Weds, March 3rd
Lexington, KY
DDDs: Lexington Public Library 10:30 am
www.lexpublib.org
Frankfurt, KY
DDDs: school shows all afternoon
Lexington, KY
DDDs: Curtains at 8 on WUKY Public Radio 8pm
Listen live at http://www.wuky.org/curtains@8.html
RHRs: Gumbo Ya Ya 10pm
http://www.gumboyayaky.com/joomla/

Thurs, March 4th - Athens, OH
RHRs - Casa Cantina 10:30 pm

Sat, March 6th - Pittsburgh, PA
DDDs: Saturday Light Brigade 11am
LIVE radio taping with audience!
http://www.slbradio.org
DDDs: 2pm -- Pittsburgh Children's Museum 2pm
http://www.pittsburghkids.org

Tub-Tub-Ma-Ma-Ga-Ga

Track 9: Tub-Tub-Ma-Ma-Ga-Ga

album: American History + Rock-n-Roll = The Deedle Deedle Dees

words & music by Lloyd Miller, arrangement by Chris Johnson, Ely Levin, Lloyd Miller, and Anand Mukherjee

lead vocals: Ulysses S. Dee (Lloyd Miller)

guest kid vocalists: Charlie Kil7gore, Hannah Finamore-Rossler, Elodie Keating, Isabel Thornton


LYRICS


CHORUS

If you get tired, do the Tub-Tub-Tubman
If you get mad, do the Martin Luther King
If you're feeling greedy, give it away like Gandhi
Hum, hum, if you're too tired to sing


VERSE 1

If you get tired, do the Tub-Tub-Tubman

She never let anybody whine on the way

"I'm sleepy!"
"I'm hungry!"

"I want to go back to the plantation!"
"Stop whining, keep walking. We got ten more miles today."


CHORUS


If you get mad Do the Ma-Ma-Martin

Let me tell you, it's not easy

People can be so mean

But take somebody's hand, a woman or a man

I don't care if you can't stand 'em

Tell 'em "I'm stickin' with love, hate's too much for me."


CHORUS


If you get greedy then give it away like Gandhi

cos all you need are some sandles, some glasses and a mat

At least that's what some fella from Massachusetts told me

when he was tryin' to explain why he only traveled with one pair of slacks




BACKSTORY:

As I've mentioned before, most Dees songs that actually make it on an album have been "battle-tested." We would say "kid-tested," but read on. This is a song that we've played for years for all different types of audiences -- babies, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, even surly junior highers. There have been a number of times that Chris (Booker Dee) and I have shown up at an NYC school to perform for (no joke) as many as 600 kids. If the kids are little (3rd grade and younger) they usually don't care what we do -- they just love hearing music and getting a chance to move around. If they're older, though, they expect to be entertained... and when two dudes show up in sport coats toating a banjo and an upright bass and calling themselves "The Deedle Deedle Dees" (usually mispronounced by the adminstrator whose introduces us first by threatening the kids that they better behave or we'll never ever come back) the odds are decidedly not in our favor.



That's where this and other workhorse tunes of ours come in. For starters, this song probably has the most famous names of any Dees composition (we prefer the lesser known heroes and villains of history, as our loyal fans know) so a good number of kids, whether they know a lot, a little, or nothing about the three namechecked people, at least feel some sort of familiarity with the subject matter. During the course of this song, they won't learn much more about these people than they already knew, but they (amazingly nearly all of them) "do the Tub-Tub-man" (walk in place), "the Ma-Ma-Martin" (take hands with someone next to them or, if this is socially unacceptable, pretend they're holding hands or, in extreme cases, just stand near someone), and "the Ga-Ga-Gandhi" (slap hands with someone). In my very brief pre-song intro I explain that they're walking because Ms. Tubman did a lot of walking, holding hands because MLK held other people's hands to show the police and others that he was strong and couldn't be ignored, and giving fives because Gandhi liked to give people things. Simplistic, yes, but efficient. If one of them, just one, looks up one of these people later, it's worth it.



A note on the first verse: according to eyewitness accounts, Harriet Tubman actually said "You'll be free or die" when runaway slaves protested that they wanted to turn back. She said this while brandishing a pistol. In a classroom situation I'll explain this to the kids, in an auditorium, it works much better to simply sing what's above: "Stop whining, keep walking..."



A note on the second verse: When kids groan in response to my request that they hold hands, I tell them to imagine themselves and everyone else in the school in Times Square (pre-Bloomberg's no-traffic Times Square). If all of you, every kid in this school, held hands and blocked the street, I ask them, could cars pass without hitting you? This explanation doesn't get the no-hand-holders to change their minds most of the time, but, if I'm a good reader of faces, most of the kids seem to get that the idea that holding hands doesn't only signify young love. It's a start.



A note on the third verse: A good friend of mine is a big fan of Rick Steves, the public television host who advocates traveling extremely light to the point that one has to wash and hang one's underwear every night. Re-read the lines in light of this fact.



A note on the kids who sing:



Isabel is my guitar student. I first worked with her over four years ago when she was in a second-grade production of Twelfth Night that my wife put on with her class. We wrote a bunch of original songs. Isabel, pardon the expression, played the fool.



Elodie used to be my guitar student. Both she and Hannah are, like Isabel, veterans of my wife's class and performers I admire.



Char7lie (he likes to spell his name like that, the "7" is silent) is an awesome drummer. He also, yes you guessed it, was in my wife's class. He wrote a rap about fish and chips that I still repeat in my head when things get bad.



A note on the first guitar solo: Yes, that is a guitar but that's not the only instrument you're hearing. There's also a pencilina there. The two instruments trade back and forth. See if you can figure out which is which.



What's a pencilina? Our producer, Bradford Reed, invented it. He used to play it when he was in the band King Missile and in the Blue Man Group (he was an original member of the cast, "before it went all corporate" as I've heard some folks remark). He now plays it on his solo albums and his scores for shows on the Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, and elsewhere. Check him and his "amazing pencilina" out here: http://www.pencilina.com/



L

Party Girl

Track 8
Party Girl
album: American History + Rock-n-Roll = The Deedle Deedle Dees
words & music by Lloyd Miller, arrangement by Chris Johnson, Ely Levin, Lloyd Miller, and Anand Mukherjee horn arrangement by Roy Nathanson
lead vocals: Ali Hammer
kid back-up vocalists: Hannah Finamore-Rossler, Elodie Keating, Isabel Thornton
alto sax: Roy Nathanson
trumpet: Gabe Nathanson


LYRICS
Just when I thought my life would end
I talked to my friend...

Here's what she said to me:

You don't have to be a party girl
You don't have to spend all your time
shaking hands for FDR
Ellie, that ain't who you are

You don't have to be a party girl
You don't have to spend all your life
standing by the door
Eleanor, I know you can do more

Down in the coal mines
In the camps
Out with the working people

Be his eyes and ears
His legs and feet

My great depression began
The day Franklin Roosevelt won the election
He's the one with the big grin
I'm just the one beside him

Hick said "No...



BACKSTORY:
A couple of years ago, a fan online asked for a song about Eleanor Roosevelt. For a long time I was really stumped by this request. Part of my writer's block had to do with Eleanor's notoriety -- she's so well known, she did so much, she's so well regarded. What more could I add? Even more important for me was the lack (as far as I knew at the time) of any complication or personality flaw or exciting incident that would provide the narrative hook on which to hang my song.

I finally found my hook for ER last year when reading Jonathan Alter's short book on FDR's first 100 days (a Deedle Deedle Dees book club selection, read about the meeting and the FDR-themed singalong I led here: http://teachddd.blogspot.com/2009/03/fdr-songs-next-book-club-meeting.html). In Alter's book, I read for the first time of Eleanor's friendship with Lorena Hickok, a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking journalist. Lorena sounds like a film noir stock character doesn't she? In the movies, of course, such characters were always male -- but that's only one of many ways that Lorena defied the stereotypes of the age. She was one of the most respected writers of the day and very much an insider among insiders in the small, exclusive world of 1930s and 40s Washington politics and media.

Only recently have researchers started to uncover more details of Eleanor and Lorena's friendship. Most signficantly, a biographer found a box of letters between the two a few years ago -- and after reading some of the contents, decided not to ignore what she found. The letters have since been published, and, at least to a 2010 reader, they sound very much like the writings of two people who were more than just friends. It's dangerous to read the language of another era with present-day ears of course, but read excerpts of the letters at the links below yourself and see what you think.

Ultimately, though, what's most significant in my opinion about the relationship is the influence that Lorena had on Eleanor. After FDR was first elected (the first of four times) Eleanor, contrary to the standard image of the smiling, supportive First Lady, was despondent and convinced that her life would now be horrible. In correspondence with Lorena, Eleanor sounds genuinely and severely depressed about her future as a party hostess and presidential spouse. Some researchers have speculated that she may have even been suicidal at this point. Lorena, as she did many times during their many years of communication with each other, doesn't soothe Eleanor with talk of how the job of First Lady won't be that bad. Instead, she tells her, in the blunt manner she was known for, that she should change the job to suit herself. She didn't say the exact words, "You don't have to be a party girl" (that's my pop music re-phrasing) but she did tell Eleanor to remake and expand the role of the president's wife. Pretty cool.

A note on the performers: We're privileged to have jazz legend Roy Nathanson and his son Gabe (now 12 years old, 11 when he recorded it) doing the horns on this song. Roy wrote the Afrobeat-inspired horn part and he and Gabe performed it together in the studio. If you've never Roy's music, you must. He's done a lot of different things, so make sure to sample some of all of it --- his work with the pioneering Jazz Passengers, his super-fun experiments with the Lounge Lizards and John Lurie, and his collaborations with Elvis Costello, Deborah Harry, and others.

Here are a few specific recommendations:

Otto von Dee says start with the album, Plain Old Joe.
http://www.amazon.com/Plain-Old-Joe-Jazz-Passengers/dp/B00000207Z/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1262370610&sr=8-1

Roy's newest album, Subway Moon, which has a companion book of poetry:http://www.amazon.com/Subway-Moon-Roy-Nathanson/dp/B001YV50JK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1262370364&sr=8-1

Roy's jazz opera featuring Elvis Costello:
http://www.amazon.com/Fire-at-Keatons-Bar-Grill/dp/B000XTHW2M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1262370439&sr=8-2

Find Roy's shows and other stuff at this MySpace. By the way, the Hot Johnsons, the bluegrass/jazz/klezmer/soul string band that Chris (Booker Dee) and I play in when not onstage with the Dees, will be opening up for Roy in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, this January.
http://www.myspace.com/roynathanson


We're also very excited to have Ali Hammer, formerly of Rasa Radiata, an NYC band that also featured Dees drummer Ely Levin (AKA Otto von Dee), on vocals. She also sings lead on "Do the Turnout" and back-up on "Xu Lapi Knewel, New Jersey."



LINKS to learn more about Eleanor and Lorena (parental guidance suggested):

a play about Eleanor and Lorea http://www.ptownfringe.org/hick.htm

read some of their letters here: http://www.sappho.com/letters/e_roosevelt.html

a published version of their letters: http://www.amazon.ca/EMPTY-WITHOUT-YOU-Intimate-Roosevelt/dp/product-description/0684849283

Alter's book: http://www.amazon.ca/Defining-Moment-FDRs-Hundred-Triumph/dp/0743246012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262371307&sr=1-1



L

The Brooklyn Bridge Song

I went looking for Roebling's house
on a windy afternoon


And though my daughter couldn't speak
she told me what she knew


She cried until we reached Number 110,
a house of air


I was looking for
a place
that wasn't there


And while the great bridge
was spun across the sky


A man with ruined legs
watched the work through a spyglass


Each morning, he sent orders to the men
by his love's hand

Do their ghosts still live where
cars drive into the night?

We went walking on that same bridge
She slept the whole way across

While I told her of its history and
the lives that were lost

A few blocks from City Hall
I bought us pizza, the first we'd shared

"More!" she said
and stood up on the chair

And while the great bridge
was spun across the sky

A man with ruined legs
watched the work through a spyglass

Each morning, he sent orders to the men
by his love's hand

Do their ghosts still live where
cars drive into the night?

A rooster was on Emily's lap
when she took the first ride across

And a president
shook Wash Ro's hand
on the day the bridge opened up

But while my girl and I
stood on the Brooklyn side

I had very different thoughts

I looked toward the Fulton Ferry dock
and saw the old man's foot get crushed

I watched the water lap at the tower stones
and saw the men set to work as the caisson shut

I felt my own legs stiffen
as if the bends had stricken them

Do ghosts still live?
Where?

12 books for 12 songs for 12 months

The Dees are putting together the reading list for our 2010 bookclub. We're going to do a different book for each song on our new album, American History + Rock-n-Roll = The Deedle Deedle Dees. That's 12 books for 12 songs for 12 months.

We need your suggestions. Books for grown-ups and books for kids. We're actually doing two lists of 12 books, a parent list and a kid list. Below are the subjects of the songs. Have you or your child read any great books on these topics?

Amelia Earhart

John Muir

The Lowell Mill Strike

Bennie Benson and the Alaskan Flag

César Chávez and his fasts

Satchel Paige

The Mexican Muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, José David Alfaro Siqueiros

Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok

The Brooklyn Bridge

Susan B. Anthony

New Jersey

We're making arrangements with a local Brooklyn bookstore or two to create a special Deedle Deedle Dees display featuring our book club books. Any book clubs near you that you think might like to participate?

L