Search - Bob Mcgrath :: Sing Me a Story

Bob McGrath, star of Sesame Street and BMI's newest member, has just released a children's album of 13 original songs, using some of the greatest studio musicians in NYC. Nils Lofgren (Neil Young's "MTV Unplugged" and former guitarist for Bruce Springsteen) played accordion and acoustic guitar, Will Lee (Letterman Band) played bass, drummer Graham Hawthorne, Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista (Paul Simon Tour), The great "Stride" pianist and classic organist Dick Hyman, Jeff Mirinov on electric guitar, the multi-talented Larry Campbell playing Fiddle, Dobro and Peddle Steel guitar, William Galison played harmonica and NYC's Chris Hajian programmed synths and SFX. "When the tracks started coming together with all these great musicians, I was truly inspired and encouraged to make changes and stretch both my vocal and acting abilities," Bob says. "It's difficult to re-invent yourself, but with all this material and music, I couldn't resist giving it a try! I think the Sesame Street parents who grew up with me when they were young will like this album as much as today's "Sesame Seeds". Produced by Kristian Rex and Bob McGrath, the recording consists of 13 original compositions mostly written by Bob and Kristian. Titled "Sing Me A Story" this album was recorded and mixed entirely at Sound On Sound Recording, NYC, and engineered by Maurice Puerto. All music arrangements were done by Kristian Rex and the Executive Producer was Bob McGrath. Kristian says, "The main idea behind this album was to produce an uplifting collection of new classic children's' songs that were hip and fun and had plenty of thoughtful imagination for both the kids and their parents. The musicianship of Larry Campbell and Dick Hyman and really all the players was extraordinary on songs raging in styles from South African, FunkyJazzBop, Reggae, AustinCakewalk, Pop Classic, New Orleans Stride, CountryChowDown, LovinGrooveFul, Fellini for Kids, RuralCountry and Zydeco. We kept it simple, interesting, and filled with musical hooks and lyrical windows for everyone to look through, listen to and have a good smile with." Kristian further explains, "The first thing we did was put together all the rhymes and reason for this album. We made our own "Credo" and established what a song needed to accomplish to make us want to put it on the album. The songs had to be fun, we needed to create an aural theater lyrically and musically for the kids to get inside, we should have fun with words or sound like "Zip-Zing-Flip-Flop" or "Baoomba", we should always be positive and not take life too seriously and most importantly the songs needed to relate to both the adult and child, and to keep their interest by not being too indulgent and by getting to the hook quickly." "We listened to songs from many different sources," Bob adds, "It ended up that Kristian and I had strong feelings about the concepts for these songs and to my surprise we wrote most of the album ourselves in 3 months. With my experience as a father and now a "GrandBob" and with Kristian's experience with his three young children, the ideas evolved from our own experiences. Kristian and I had great times collaborating on these songs with our own little "critics" sitting on our laps! We hope that parents will have as much fun singing along with their children as we did with ours."