Tunes for Tuesday Vol. 2

This week’s Tunes for Tuesday is a guest post from downtown Ottawa mom Christina Leadlay…

The Johnny Cash Children’s Album (released 1975. available on iTunes)

This is perhaps one of the last actual CDs I’ve purchased, now that I get all my music digitally. I happened upon it while spending time with my then-toddler in the children’s section of a now-defunct ByWard Market bookshop a few years ago, and I was absolutely tickled by the notion of a kids’ album by Johnny Cash of all people– a musician known for his Man in Black persona who crooned tales of murder, prison, and a boy named Sue. It was a children’s album I initially bought more for myself than my kids!

For Johnny Cash fans, this record is more in the style of his “One Piece at a Time” song, setting catchy, folksy tunes to vivid stories involving wild bears and hunters, migrating geese, and what it would be like if dinosaurs were still alive. My personal favourites are the nostalgic story of “Grandfather’s Clock,” and the husband-and-wife banter in “I Got a Boy and His Name is John,” a duet with June Carter Cash. For children, it’s got a quirky alphabet song, a guy named “Nasty Dan,” and lots of brilliant banjo and guitar.

This album is a fun snapshot of life in the 1970’s rural American South, one that urban Canadian children (and their parents) can still enjoy.