Laurie Berkner

Laurie Berkner

BERKING UP THE RIGHT TREE

Laurie Berkner Charms the Sandbox Set with Under a Shady Tree
The kidsville's hipster princess is back! After a three-year absence, Laurie Berkner returns with Under a Shady Tree, another charming set of songs for the preschool set. Since her debut in 1997, this fair-haired folkie has earned increasing ranks of fans among kids -- and their parents -- who revel in her playful, thoughtful songs. Offering a welcome respite from saccharine toddler tunes, Berkner's material speaks to kids' hearts, head, and feet -- no wonder critics have called her a "sandbox smash" and parents admit listening to her CDs when the kids aren't around. Her latest inspired collection takes young fans on another journey and should open the door of opportunity a bit wider for the talented songstress.Barnes & Noble.com's Amy Barkat checked in with the busy Berkner to get the scoop behind Under a Shady Tree -- and to find out what lies ahead.

Barnes & Noble.com: Pop music is reaching a younger and younger audience. How do you think your particular brand of music fits into their lives?

Laurie Berkner: That's an interesting question because I think in some ways the new CD, Under a Shady Tree, is sort of different from my other CDs. I know someone who reviewed it recently actually said something like, "It seems like the songs are getting a little, not older, but maybe hitting a wider audience." I do think about that a lot. I used to do a lot of birthday parties and I'd hear that four-year-olds were already quoting Britney Spears. I think what I have been writing, part of what made it work, was that it was often about subjects that are really relevant to kids who are three years old or five years old. My hope is that some of the songs that I'm writing now will also reach a little bit older.

B&N.com: Your new CD explores some different genres like world music and reggae, and it does sound like the music's maturing a little bit. Were you were aiming to reach an older audience ?

LB: No, it's just the way the songs came out. It's like one of those things when you start to create something and you don't really know what it's going to be when it's done. And I think part of the reason was that I wrote a lot of them outside of the classroom. So they were coming more from my own experiences when I was a kid or things I remembered or walking down the street and watching people.

B&N.com: What were your musical inspiration growing up? Do you remember having any favorite singers when you were three, four, five years old?

LB: In terms of children's albums, I think we had a Burl Ives record; we had a lot of French folk music and German folk music. I do remember when I joined the Olivia Newton-John fan club. Oh, yes. I actually covered "Have You Never Been Mellow?" in a rock band a few years back. And I followed her through everything. It started through Grease, but I went back and found her old albums even in the Let's Get Physical and Xanadu period, I was right there! I listened to a lot of show music, actually. That's what my parents had around -- we had John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, and then Broadway shows. That was all middle school rather than the younger stuff. I remember "The Sound of Music" -- marching around to that song when I was two.

B&N.com: Your vocals on the album are really great, especially on "Running Down the Hill." Vocally, you've been called the Ani DiFranco or Sheryl Crow of the swing-set crowd. How do you feel about those types of comparisons?

LB: Oh, its great. I feel flattered. Every time I get emails from people saying things like that I just feel lucky, I'm glad people like the way my voice sounds.

B&N.com: You played non-kiddie music with your band Red Onion a while back. Have you ever considered pursuing that again?

LB: Yeah, and I feel like that was part of what this album was starting to say to me -- okay, you can keep going in this direction, you don't have to limit yourself to a certain genre or age group. I'm glad that the kids stuff is still coming out. Recently I wrote a song that was absolutely not a children's song because it was really about desire and love. I feel like I learned something different about writing children's music -- which is, just say what you mean. Just say it and you're done.

B&N.com: I'm sure the parents of your wee-little fans would be thrilled if you made a grown-ups' album. You'd have a built-in audience because they know your name through your kids' music. That's a big problem for unknown artists -- your album might be magnificent, but if no one knows who you are then...

LB: No one will listen to it, right. That's sort of how I felt when I was doing adult music originally. But what's really nice is that if I did try to do it in the future, I would do it so much better. Not just being older and having more life experience and having a different way to express myself but having learned so much about writing. Writing what seemed like these really simple little songs. Some of those songs I wrote while I was bawling. "The Story of My Feelings" on Victor Vito -- I wrote that when I was in a fight with a friend. I was just sitting in my living room and crying and crying, and I was like, wow, I feel really sad and this is really helping me. So I wrote "When I feel sad I cry and I make me feel better." That's all that song is, and it still makes me cry when I sing it. Actually, I sang that song to open a show that we did on Sept 14th last year that 400 people came to, even though it was three days after the 11th. I couldn't keep myself from crying in the show. I feel like that's what kids show me too -- this is what's happening to me right now, and that's it. It can change in a second, but while it's happening it's very pure.

B&N.com: I've heard that you recently sealed the deal for a series of books.

LB: When we did the Today show last year, luckily a really wonderful editor from Scholastic was watching while she was on the treadmill and called. "I was just praying that no one else got you first!" Which is funny, because nobody did. Scholastic's idea is to do a book and have a CD in the back, which I think is great. It's not going to happen until 2004, but they're starting with Victor Vito, and we'll see from there.

B&N.com: You released a video last year, Laurie Berkner's Video Songbook, which included lovely simple animation against live concert footage

LB: Yeah, it was a very home-grown thing. What I really want to do is put out a DVD. I'd like to have a lot more things on it and a lot more interestingly and professionally done.

B&N.com: Well, you have books, video, and music -- you're like a multimedia giant!

LB: That's really exciting to me to hear you say that, because I feel like that's what I would like. I want to stay true to just being a songwriter -- I feel like that's what I do best. But if there are ways of getting it out there to people that just enhance it, that is perfect to me. I hope it just keeps being able to grow. That would be pretty amazing. How did I actually create something like this where I get to write songs and people pay me for it? I'm very lucky. And I hope not to forget that.

October 1, 2002