Daniel Bergey

Flickr View All » Our new houseBack of our new houseSam hard at work on my computerHigh St. yet againCarlisle TheatreStill more High St.Even more High St.High St. yet againHigh St. again

Mister Rogers Swings!

When I was a kid, there were only two TV shows I was allowed to watch. One of them was Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and the other was Sesame Street, mostly because it came on right afterward. I grew up loving both Fred Rogers’ kindly ways, and the jazz stylings of Johnny Costa.

Because of my support of Wear A Sweater / Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day (via @andyfowler) a few weeks ago, Holly Yarbrough contacted me on Facebook and offered to send me a CD of her Mister Rogers jazz cover album.

(Sidenote: Holly’s father, also an accomplished singer, is Glenn Yarbrough, best known to me as the singer of “The Greatest Adventure” in the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, which I saw at the James V. Brown Library when I was about four years old. See Dirk Gently’s “fundamental interconnectedness of all things”.)

I said “Sure, I’ve love a copy,” and when it arrived, I was impressed. It was in a punch-cut paper case (classier than a jewel case, in my opinion), and the CD was cleverly made to resemble an LP. But the music was even better. Backed by an all-star jazz band, Holly does a lovely job interpreting all of the songs, but especially two of my all-time favorites (click to hear samples):

The only song I listened for and missed on the album was What Do You Do, but there’s always a follow-up album. ;)

You can buy Mister Rogers Swings! on CDBaby, and there’s no digital rights-management on the tracks (unlike the version on iTunes). This is really an album of which you should buy the CD, though, since it’s such a nice physical CD.

By the way, you can read the lyrics and download sheet music for Fred Rogers’ songs on his PBS Kids site.

(Congrats, Holly; you got Boing Boing!’d today: Jazzy Covers of Mister Rogers’ Songs)


← Before