Musical Pioneer Helps Kids Tune In to Life’s Lessons

You may not know the name, but chances are you’ve heard Ella Jenkins’ ageless multicultural folk melodies and activity songs in your child’s preschool, or even back in your own kindergarten days. You may have seen her recently, baritone ukulele or harmonica in hand, on “Barney and Friends,” “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” or NBC’s “Today Show.”

Jenkins, an internationally respected children’s music pioneer, has been a staple of early childhood education and entertainment for two generations. Her 40 years of recordings for the respected Folkways label (owned now by the Smithsonian Institution) have been used by countless teachers and parents to help children tune in to rhythm, language, numbers and more subtle life lessons.

At 72, Jenkins is still going strong, giving live performances, doing recordings, appearing on kids’ TV shows, working with teachers and collecting folk songs and material for her original work in travels that have taken her to all corners of the globe, including China and the former Soviet Union.

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Last week, the Chicago resident was in Burbank, sharing her music and educational approaches with teachers attending the Southern California Kindergarten Conference.

She doesn’t plan to retire any time soon.

“Children are my favorite people,” Jenkins said. “When they come to the concerts or the family workshops, they don’t think of me as being an older woman, a black woman. They just think, ‘Here’s a lady who sings songs we can sing, who plays instruments we can hear.’ It’s a sharing.”

Jenkins’ most recent albums include 1996’s “Holiday Times,” her first release of all-new material since 1991, and “Songs Children Love to Sing,” a 40th anniversary collection of Jenkins’ favorites, from “This Old Man” and Jenkins’ own “The World Is Big, The World Is Small” to “The Wilderness,” her “favorite gospel song.”

“I’m in tune with the times,” Jenkins said, “but when I create music, I try to do something that is going to stand the test of time, not something that’s in vogue. That’s why I go back even to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,’ little songs you’ll find just about every child knows. They love the familiar. And then you can go on and introduce new sounds, rhythms and rhymes.”

Children are always part of Jenkins’ songs. They accompany her on most of her recordings, and the songs themselves are a guide for listeners to participate in all kinds of vocal responses, motion and body percussion.

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“I used her music extensively,” said Marlene Myers, a conference participant and teacher who spent 38 years in early education.

“She sings about colors, shapes, safety, history, travel--the children really get involved. I worked with a bilingual class,” she added, “and so many of the children came to me with absolutely no English. Long before they could speak a complete sentence, they were singing Ella Jenkins’ music.”

“I never think of music as an entity in itself,” Jenkins said, “but as a way of helping children learn a bit about themselves and appreciate who they are.”

Jenkins’ music comes not only from call-and-response folk traditions here and around the world but also from the varied, multicultural musical stew she grew up with as a child on Chicago’s South Side.

Her family, when they were able to, moved frequently to find better surroundings--”the farther north you lived in the black community, the poorer you were”--and Jenkins was exposed to a variety of music, from children’s play songs like “Mary Mack” and spirituals broadcast from church loudspeakers to jukebox blues and new songs sampled at record stores. “I went around the world in those record booths,” she said.

She learned to play the harmonica by listening to her blues-loving uncle. “He’d play his harmonica for hours. I’d sit on the floor and just listen.”

Jenkins still introduces children to one of her favorites, Cab Calloway, in her song “The Hi Dee Ho Man.” She sings about real people a lot, hoping that a teacher or parent will use songs about Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony and others as a springboard to teach children more about them.

One of Jenkins’ biggest fans is Fred Rogers, the beloved icon of children’s TV, who has often worked with Jenkins.

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He sees her as something of a national treasure, “passing on songs from the ages that might not be passed on if not for her,” and he “absolutely” shares Jenkins’ belief that music plays an important role in reaching and teaching children.

“Everybody looks forward to the times when Ella comes to the ‘Neighborhood,’ ” Rogers said. “I can see why children are attracted to her. What she does comes straight from her heart.”

* Ella Jenkins, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, (800) 410-9815. On the Internet: https://www.si.edu/folkways