Quick Hits: Berkner's Handwashing Heroes and Party; Sprout Touts Jefferson

If you do a search online for popular children's music artists, Laurie Berkner always comes up near the top (if not the top). Her fan base is immense, her songs are inventive, and her connection to her audience has grown over nearly 20 years. Laurie starts the month of July with "The Superhero Handwashing Song," and an accompanying video (more conceptual than anything else, featuring still images and borrowed footage from previous videos).

The era of coronavirus means taking extra bathroom precautions for health reasons. Laurie addresses those issues in a direct, effective manner (hey, less than one minute and 20 seconds). As she explained, "It can be hard to come up with a way to keep a young child...at the sink long enough to safely wash their hands. Ask your little superheroes to fly over to the sink and then turn on the song. Just by following along they will be dancing - and have fully clean hands - in only one minute!"

The Laurie Berkner Band will be hosting a "Dino Beach Party" on Sunday, August 9 at 5 PM ET ($20 admission). This will be the second in Laurie's summer concert series and the first with her whole band (Brady Rymer, Susie Lampert, and Bob Golden) appearing in some capacity. Click the title link for more information.



Just in time for the Fourth of July, Jonathan Sprout is releasing new kid's music, in the form of the song "Happiness." You can watch that video here. But more directly related to the actual national holiday and our founding fathers, Jonathan has the song "What He Wrote," talking about Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the original Declaration of Independence, which was signed coincidentally on July 4, 1776. This tune has been around for a few years, and was co-written by fellow kid's music composer Dave Kinnoin. Together, "What He Wrote" brings history to life with music and rhyme:

We hold these truths to be self-evident
All men are created equal. And on it went.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness...
He spelled democracy and nothing less.
He made it crystal clear 
So all the world could hear.