A brand new youngsters’s album on Smithsonian Folkways features a music about homosexual activist and politician Harvey Milk. The album was co-written by Cass McCombs and San Francisco preschool instructor Greg Gardner.
Greg Gardner
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Greg Gardner
A brand new youngsters’s album on Smithsonian Folkways features a music about homosexual activist and politician Harvey Milk. The album was co-written by Cass McCombs and San Francisco preschool instructor Greg Gardner.
Greg Gardner
San Francisco-based preschool instructor Greg Gardner says he and his pal, singer-songwriter Cass McCombs, “have collected means too many Folkways data” through the years — by Woody Guthrie, Michael Hurley, Lead Stomach, Mary Lou Williams, Ella Jenkins and others.
The pair are large followers of the influential label based in 1948 by Moses Asch. So that they have been thrilled when Folkways agreed to incorporate their new album of kids’s songs to the label’s seventy fifth anniversary celebration.
A storied assortment turns 75
To say Moses Asch’s pursuits have been eclectic can be an understatement. With Folkways, he got down to, fairly actually, seize the world’s sounds, from Cajun accordion to Langston Hughes’ voice, Irish ballads to the sound of steam locomotives.
His catalogue of greater than 2,000 recordings was a becoming sonic addition to the so-called “nation’s attic.” It was additionally in keeping with the Smithsonian’s mission assertion – “The rise and diffusion of information” – says Folkways spokesperson Jonathan Williger
“Information isn’t just phrases on a web page. Sound is a serious means that people work together with the world,” says Williger, “The Folkways catalog is filled with each the monumental and the minute, every little thing from the sound of a stapler being stapled to the March on Washington.”
“[Folkways] data speak of great topics, however they achieve this in a extremely enjoyable means, that is foolish at occasions and heartfelt, and I actually connect with that,” says Gardner, “They sound fairly easy and so they’re additionally fairly stripped down. I’ve at all times cherished…the realness of that.”
The San Francisco Homosexual Males’s Refrain lent their voices to the music Wave a Flag For Harvey Milk from the brand new Smithsonian Folkways’ album Mr. Greg & Cass McCombs Sing and Play New People Songs for Kids.
Greg Gardner
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Greg Gardner
Crafting a brand new addition, protecting the previous vibe
Gardner and McCombs tried to strategy their new album in a means that might match the Folkways’ vibe. Mr. Greg & Cass McCombs Sing and Play New People Songs for Kids ranges from foolish to critical with songs a few worm named Wilma, flying a paper airplane, recycling and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The lead single is Wave a Flag For Harvey Milk, a easy ode to the famend homosexual activist and politician. The music was launched in June, throughout Pleasure Month, upfront of the total album’s August launch.
McCombs and Gardner’s effort is a continuation of Folkways’ lengthy historical past of releasing youngsters’s albums comparable to Woody Guthrie’s Songs To Develop On and quite a few recordings by the ‘First Woman of Kids’s Music,’ Ella Jenkins.
People songs for kids are, “simple to play and could be handed down from individual to individual,” says Williger. As a topic for a music, Harvey Milk matches Folkways’ “lengthy historical past of social justice music.” Plus, it is “concerning the social problems with your home,” notes Williger.
Gardner teaches at a faculty 5 blocks from San Francisco’s Castro District the place Milk lived, labored and campaigned. He says the music started as “a sing alongside coloring ebook” he created for his preschool college students. “I assumed they could interact with the coloring ebook greater than they’d with me simply speaking about Harvey Milk,” he explains.
Harvey Milk “stood up for his individuals down by the Golden Gate”
In 1977, Milk grew to become one of many first overtly homosexual public officers within the U.S. when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. On the time, individuals might be fired from their jobs for being homosexual.
Milk, together with different activists, campaigned to defeat a poll proposition that might have banned homosexual individuals from working in California faculties. On November seventh, 1978, the proposition was defeated by greater than one million votes.
Three weeks later, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone have been assassinated by a former metropolis supervisor.
“Harvey Milk’s message of advocating for others and treating individuals pretty and being proud to be your true self is in keeping with the values that we hope to instill within the preschool classroom,” says Gardner.
Youngsters like rainbows
College students, dad and mom and different neighborhood members sing Wave a Flag on the annual Harvey Milk Celebration at Kids’s Day College the place Gardner’s been educating for 12 years.
What does an astronaut should do with Harvey Milk? Greg Gardner admits he was “operating out of concepts.” However, since children love outer area, “I assumed it might be enjoyable to incorporate a web page that has an astronaut that is additionally an advocate of Harvey Milk.”
Greg Gardner
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Greg Gardner
To assist preschoolers perceive Milk’s legacy of human rights, Gardner tries to make parallels with their very own lives.
“Youngsters can have totally different pursuits after which others will query their pursuits. After which the unique child will, you realize, get down and say, ‘Nicely, this particular person stated that I am unable to be Elsa, too, as a result of they’re already Elsa.’ And, ‘I am a boy and I am unable to be Elsa.'” Gardner says he tells them, “‘All people has their very own pursuits and everyone could be who they wish to be, and it is simply as much as you.’ After which they type of get that and it clicks.”
There’s one more reason Harvey Milk’s legacy “clicks” with children: rainbows.
“All children like rainbows, appears,” Gardner has realized. When he talks to his college students about Milk, additionally they find out about Gilbert Baker, the San Francisco flag-maker who got here up with what has turn into the worldwide image for the LGBTQ motion. Because the music says, “A flag that stands for love fabricated from rainbow coloured silk.”
This story was edited by Rose Friedman.
