Katy Bowser: Coal Train Railroad
“Kids deserve good music too.” That’s the philosophy behind the fantastic new record from Katy Bowser, Chris Donohue, and friends, Coal Train Railroad. Continuing in the grand tradition of great jazz music for kids like A Charlie Brown Christmas and the Peanuts specials, Katy has made a record with some of the best jazz players in Nashville with lyrics that kids - and adults - will love to sing along with. With titles like Belly Button, I Need a Nap, and Snuggling, you know you’re in for a good time.
Here’s what Katy wrote on her blog about the project:
“After many years of dreaming, writing, tweaking, recording and planning, we are releasing Coal Train Railroad on Thanksgiving Day. It’s great jazz for kids! Coal Train is a collaboration between Katy Bowser and Chris Donohue. It’s music about kid stuff- juice, snuggling, naps, getting along, sharing- with music that we can all enjoy together.”
I can’t wait to play this record for my friends’ kids and hear them running around the house, singing along with My Mouth and Me, trying to make all the same noises that are on the record, or snuggling close while listening to some of the slower songs. One of Katy’s friends said it best: “Buy one for each child in your life. If there are no children in your life, get a new life.”
I could have spent the whole blog post talking about how great Katy’s melodies are on this project. I haven’t been able to get I Need a Nap or What’s Mine is Yours out of my head since I first heard them. And the music, wow. Jeff Coffin, the saxophone player for the Grammy award-winning Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, currently on tour with the Dave Matthew Band, has some great solos here, and Rod McGaha’s trumpet tones are the perfect accompaniment. A friend of mine, Scott Hallgren, who has worked with Donna Summer, Elton John, Margaret Becker, and Fernando Ortega, just to name a few, is also a great jazz pianist, and his voicings support Katy’s voice beautifully.
If you pre-order Coal Train Railroad before Thanksgiving, you get an immediate download of two songs, plus a bonus track on Thanksgiving. Time’s running out, so place your order soon. To whet your appetite, here’s one song that serves as a perfect example of how fun these songs are, My Mouth and Me, that Katy has graciously allowed us to feature here.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
That track made me smile out loud!
I have enjoyed the music of Katy Bowser since Longing. It makes sense that she would record a record featuring a jazz vibe. Her distinctive voice reminds me of the jazz era. I can totally hear her voice as the soundtrack for a movie from the 40s or early 50s. Children’s music can immortalize an artist in the mind of a child. My son was raised on children’s music from Jim Salestrom and knows every word of those songs. I regret that he wasn’t young enough to catch the wave on Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame’s Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies, and now Coal Train Railroad from Katy Bowser. Thankfully, one can still appreciate songs like these if he is young at heart.