Friday, November 15, 2024

A01820 - Ella Jenkins, "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song"

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Ella Jenkins
Birth nameElla Louise Jenkins
BornAugust 6, 1924
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
OriginChicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedNovember 9, 2024 (aged 100)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
GenresFolk, children's music
OccupationSinger-songwriter
InstrumentsUkulele, harmonica
Years active1951–2017
LabelsFolkways Records
Smithsonian Folkways
Websitewww.ellajenkins.com

Ella Louise Jenkins (August 6, 1924 – November 9, 2024) was an American singer-











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Ella Louise Jenkins (August 6, 1924 – November 9, 2024) was an American singer-songwriter and centenarian. Called "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song", she was a leading performer of folk and children's music.[1][2] Her album, Multicultural Children's Songs (1995), has long been the most popular Smithsonian Folkways release. She appeared on numerous children's television programs and in 2004, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[3][4] According to culture writer Mark Guarino, "across her 67-year career, Jenkins firmly established the genre of children's music as a serious endeavor — not just for artists to pursue but also for the recording industry to embrace and promote."[5]

A Life of Song: The Story of Ella Jenkins. The First Lady of Children's Music was published by Gloo Books on February 1, 2024[6]. The book is about the life of Ella Jenkins, who used music to fight racism and unite people. It is the first kids picture book published about the life of Ella Jenkins. Author Ty-Juana Taylor notes "Ms. Jenkins has used music as a tool to bridge and unite people across the world, especially in highly divisive times of the U.S. Civil Rights era."[7] Ella and the city of Chicago celebrated her 100th birthday and the books release On Sunday, August 4th, 2024 at her namesake Ella Jenkins Park in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood, 333 W. Wisconsin Ave., from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.[8] The book is illustrated by Jade Johnson.

Background

[edit]

Jenkins was born into an African American family in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1924, and grew up in predominantly lower-middle-class neighborhoods in the south side of Chicago.[9] Growing up in a family of Christian Scientists with eclectic musical tastes, she benefited from her rich musical surroundings although she received no formal musical training.[10] Her uncle, Floyd Johnson, introduced her to the harmonica and the blues of such renowned musicians as T-Bone Walker, Memphis Slim, Little Brother Montgomery and Big Bill Broonzy. Her family frequently moved around the south side and, as she moved to different neighborhoods, she learned new children's rhythms, rhymes and games.[11] Gospel music became a part of her soundscape as neighborhood churches broadcast their services onto the street.[1] She also enjoyed tap dancing lessons at the local theater and was able to go to the Regal Theater to see such performers as Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and Peg Leg Bates. Cab Calloway is the person who she credits with getting her interested in call and response singing.[12][13]

While attending Woodrow Wilson Junior College, she became interested in the music of other cultures through her Mexican, Cuban and Puerto Rican friends.[11] In 1951, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with minors in Child Psychology and Recreation from San Francisco State University.[1] Here, she picked up songs of the Jewish culture from her roommates. Upon graduating, she returned to Chicago in 1951 where she began her career.[10]

On November 9, 2024, Jenkins died at an assisted living facility in Chicago; she was 100.[9][14]

Career

[edit]

In Chicago, Jenkins began writing songs for children while volunteering in recreation centers.[1] She subsequently was hired as a Teenage Program Director for the YWCA in 1952. While working at the YWCA, she was invited to perform on the Chicago public television show, The Totem Club. She was soon offered a regular job as the host of its Thursday program, which she entitled This is Rhythm. She invited guests from diverse cultures to share their music's rhythms on her show.[11]

You Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song (1966)

In 1956, Jenkins decided to become a full-time musician. She began her career as a children's musician touring school assemblies in the United States, often sleeping in a different place each night and encountering racial discrimination.[2] As she performed in more varied venues, she began to write music about her experiences. Later that year Jenkins met American folklorist, educator and record producer Kenneth S. Goldstein at the Gate of Horn folk music club in Chicago. Goldstein recommended that she bring a demo tape to Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways Records.[10] Asch was receptive to her music and in 1957, her first album, Call-And-Response: Rhythmic Group Singing, was released by Folkways. Since then, Folkways Records and, more recently, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings have released 39 albums, including the popular You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song. Her 1995 album Multicultural Children's Songs is the most popular Smithsonian Folkways release to date. She has not only been an important force in children's lives, but in the lives of parents and fellow music educators as well. She has participated in many conferences on music education, and has offered workshops for music educators, parents, and caregivers all over the world.[citation needed]

As a performer and educator, Jenkins has traveled extensively, performing her songs on all seven continents (even Antarctica). As she travels, she not only shares her music and experiences but also learns about the cultures of the people she is visiting, taking with her musical traditions and languages that she then shares with her audiences. She has also made television appearances on shows including NBC's Today Show, CNN's Showbiz Today, and PBS programs such as Barney & Friends, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, The Me Too Show, Look at Me, and in films shown on Sesame Street. She performed at America's Reunion on the Mall in 1993, America's Millennium Celebration in 2000, and at Smithsonian's 150th Birthday Party on the Mall in Washington, DC in 1996. In collaboration with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she has acted as a U.S. delegate to Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, and the former Soviet Union.[1]

As a recording artist, Jenkins has gained extensive recognition. Her recordings have received Parents' Choice awards and two Grammy Award nominations in the category of Best Musical Album for Children. In 2004, she was recognized with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[15]

Jenkins' final album, Camp Songs with Ella Jenkins and Friends, was released in 2017.[9]

As an educator

[edit]

Jenkins' favorite people are children. She sees them as genuine, down to earth people who should be listened to and recognized as having much to offer. Fellow music educator Patricia Sheehan Campbell lauds her as "a pioneer in her early and continuing realization that children have something to sing about, that the essence of who they are may be expressed through song, and that much of what they need to know of their language, heritage, and current cultural concepts may be communicated to them through song".[16] Through her songs, she hopes to develop greater intercultural understanding and rhythmic-consciousness, and to help people discover the joy of singing and communicating through active participation in songs.

Jenkins' repertoire includes nursery rhymes, holiday songs, bilingual songs, African-American folk songs, international songs, rhythmic chants, and original songs. Drawing from cultures all over the world, she sings in many languages, exposing her audiences to diverse cultures and promoting greater cultural awareness.

Through her style of call-and-response singing, Jenkins promotes group participation. Found in cultures worldwide, from Greece to the Middle East to West Africa, call-and-response singing involves a leader or leaders singing a phrase and the rest of the participants commenting or responding with another phrase.[17] Using this technique, she breaks the barrier between audience and performer, and turns everyone into a performer. By encouraging active participation, she promotes the development of a warm group feeling, cooperation among the participants, greater attentiveness, an enjoyment of singing, and a desire to sing. She also encourages children to lead songs, make up their own variations of songs, and experiment with fun and silly sounds. This allows children to think independently, develop leadership skills, and improvise, resulting in increased self-confidence.

In helping children discover music and participate in its creation, Jenkins provides them with a new tool of communication that they can use and enjoy for the rest of their lives.

Awards

[edit]
  • Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Foundation (First recipient in the field of Children's Music and the first woman selected for the honor) (1999)
  • Grammy Nomination for Best Musical Album for Children for Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends (1999)
  • Award from the Music Educators National Conference "in appreciation of her support for music education and the National Association for Music Education" (2000)
  • Grammy Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2004)
  • Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from the Erikson Institute (2004)
  • Inducted into the San Francisco State University Alumni Hall of Fame (2004)
  • Grammy Nomination for Best Musical Album for Children for Sharing Cultures with Ella Jenkins (2005)
  • Voted 2005 Chicagoan of the year by Chicago Magazine
  • Fellow Award in Music from United States Artists (2009)[18]
  • National Endowment for the Arts Grant, with Illinois Arts Council matching grant
  • Named Honorary Citizen of Louisville, KY, during The Year of the Child
  • National Academy of Recordings Arts and Sciences, Chicago Chapter, Governor's Award, contribution in children's recording and performance
  • Proclamation of Ella Jenkins Day (December 12) in Chicago, IL
  • American Academy of Children's Entertainment, Best Variety Performer Award
  • American Library Association Award
  • Fifth Star Award from the City of Chicago (2015)[19]
  • National Heritage Fellowship recipient (2017)[20]
  • The Ella Jenkins Park in Chicago was the site of a celebration of her 100th birthday.[21][22]

Discography

[edit]

1950s and 1960s

[edit]
  • 1957: Call-and-Response Rhythmic Group Singing [23] (1990) Reissue of FW7638 from 1957. SFW45030 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1959: Adventures in Rhythm [24] (1989) Reissue of FW7682 from 1959. SFW45007 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1960: African-American Folk Rhythms [25] (1998) Reissue of Negro Folk Rhythms FW7654 from 1960. SFW45003 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1961: This-a-Way-That-a-Way [26] (1989) Reissue of FW7652 from 1961. SFW45002 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1961: This is Rhythm [27] (1994) Reissue of FW7652 from 1961. SFW45028 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1964: Rhythm & Game Songs for Little Ones [28] (1991) Reissue of FW7680 from 1964. SFW45027 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1964: Songs and Rhythms From Near and Far [29] (1997) Reissue of FW7655 from 1964. SFW45033 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1966: You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song [30] (1989) Reissue of FW7664 from 1966. SFW45010 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1968: Play Your Instruments & Make a Pretty Sound [31] (1994) Reissue of FW7665 from 1968. SFW45018 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1969: Counting Games & Rhythms for the Little Ones [32] (1990) Reissue of FW7679 from 1969. SFW45029 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1969: A Long Time to Freedom [33] (1992) Reissue of FW7754 from 1969. SFW45034 (LP, Cassette, CD).

1970s

[edit]
  • 1970: Rhythms of Childhood [34] (1989) Reissue of FW7653 from 1963. SFW45008 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1970: Seasons for Singing [35] (1990) Reissue of FW7656 from 1970. SFW45031 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1970: A Long Time to Freedom [33] (1992) Reissue of FW7754 from 1970. SFW45034 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1971: And One And Two & Other Songs for Pre-School and Primary Children [36] (1990) Reissue of FW7544 from 1971. SFW45016 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1971: My Street Begins at My House [37] (1989) Reissue of FW7543 from 1971. SFW45005 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1972: Little Johnny Brown [38] (1990) Reissue FW7631 from 1972. SFW45026 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1973: This-A-Way That-A-Way (1973) Folkways FC 7546. (Vinyl LP, Cassette, CD)
  • 1974: Nursery Rhymes: Rhyming & Remembering for Young Children & for Older Girls & Boys with Special Language Needs [39] (1990) Reissue of FW7660 from 1974. SFW45019 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1974: Jambo and Other Call and Response Songs and Chants [40] (1996) Reissue of FW7661 from 1974. SFW 45017 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1976: Growing Up With Ella Jenkins [41] (1990) Reissue of FW7662 from 1976. SFW45032 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1977: Songs, Rhythms And Chants for the Dance [29] (2000) Reissue of FW7000AB from 1977. SFW45004 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1979: Travellin' with Ella Jenkins: – A Bilingual Journey [42] (1989) Reissue of FW7640 from 1979. SFW45009 (LP, Cassette, CD).

1980s

[edit]
  • 1981: I Know the Colors of the Rainbow [43] (1981) EA595 (CD).
  • 1981: Looking Back and Looking Forward [44] (1981) EA596 (CD).
  • 1982: Early Early Childhood Songs [45] (1996) Reissue of FW7630 from 1982. SFW45015 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1983: Hopping Around from Place to Place Vol. 1 [46] (1983) EA613 (CD).
  • 1983: Hopping Around from Place to Place Vol. 2 [47] (1983) EA614 (CD).
  • 1989: This-a-Way, This-a-Way" [26] (1988) SFW45002 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1989: My Street Begins at my House [37] (1989) SFW45005 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1989: Adventure in Rhythm [24] (1989) SFW45007 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1989: Rhythm of Childhood [34] (1989) SFW45008 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1989: You'll Sing a Song, I'll Sing a Song [30] (1989) SFW45010 (LP, Cassette, CD).

1990s

[edit]
  • 1990: We Are America's Children [48] (1990) Reissue of FW7666. SFW45006 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1990: And One and Two [36] (1990) SFW45016 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1990: Nursery Rhymes: Rhyming & Remembering for Young Children & for Older Girls & Boys with Special Language Needs [39] (1990) SFW45019 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1990: Counting Games and Rhythms For the Little Ones [32] (1990) SFW45029 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1990: Call and Response [23] (1990) SFW45030 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1990: Seasons for Singing [35] (1990) SFW45031 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1991: Live at the Smithsonian [49] (1991) SFW48001 (VHS, DVD).
  • 1991: For the Family [50] (1991) SFW48002 (VHS, DVD).
  • 1991: Little Johnny Brown with Ella Jenkins and Girls and Boys from "Uptown" ( Chicago) [38] (1991) SFW45026 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1991: Rhythm and Game Songs for the Little Ones [28] (1991) SFW45027 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1992: Come Dance by the Ocean [51] (1992) SFW45014 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1994: Play Your Instruments and Make a Pretty Sound [31] (1994) SFW45018 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1994: This is Rhythm [27] (1994) SFW45028 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1995: Multi-Cultural Children's Songs [52] (1995) SFW45045 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1996: Early Early Childhood Songs [45] (1996) SFW45015 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1996: Jambo and Other Call and Response Songs and Chants [40] (1996) SFW45017 (LP, Cassette, CD).
  • 1996: Holiday Times [53] (1996) SFW45041 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1996: Songs Children Love To Sing [54] (1996) SFW45042 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1997: Songs and Rhythms from Near and Far [55] (1997) SFW45033 (Cassette, CD).
  • 1999: Ella Jenkins and A Union of Friends Pulling Together [56] (1999) SFW45046 (LP, Cassette, CD).

2000s and 2010s

[edit]
  • 2000: Song Rhythms and Chants for the Dance with Ella Jenkins; Interviews with "Dance People" [29] (2000) SFW45004 (Cassette, CD).
  • 2003: Sharing Cultures With Ella Jenkins [57] (2003) SFW45058 (CD).
  • 2004: cELLAbration: A Tribute to Ella Jenkins [58] (2004) SFW45059 (CD).
  • 2011: A Life of Song [59] (2011) SFW45067 (CD)[60]
  • 2013: Get Moving with Ella Jenkins [61] (2013) SFW45073 (CD).
  • 2014: 123s and ABCs [62] (2014) SFW45076 (CD)
  • 2014: More Multicultural Children's Songs [63] (2014) SFW45078 (CD)
  • 2017: Camp Songs with Ella Jenkins and Friends[64] (2017) (CD)

Filmography

[edit]
  • 1991: Ella Jenkins Live at the Smithsonian [49] (1991) SFW48001 (VHS, DVD).
  • 1991: For the Family! [50] (1991) SFW48002 (VHS, DVD).
  • 2007: cELLAbration Live! A Tribute to Ella Jenkins [65] (2007) SFW48007 (DVD).

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e "Ella Jenkins". Ellajenkins.com. July 29, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b Graeber, Laurel (August 5, 2024). "How 100-Year-Old Ella Jenkins Revolutionized Children's Music". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
  3. ^ "City of Chicago : Fifth Star Bios". chicago.gov. 2015. Archived from the original on May 16, 2019. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  4. ^ Abramowitz, Sophie (August 6, 2024). "A Century of Ella Jenkins: Tributes to the First Lady of Children's Music". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
  5. ^ Guarino, Mark (August 1, 2024). "Chicago is celebrating the 100th birthday of Ella Jenkins, musician and architect of a social movement". Wbez.org. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
  6. ^ "A Life of Song Celebrates Overlooked Activism of Ella Jenkins, the "Fi". Gloo Books. January 16, 2024. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  7. ^ "A Life of Song: The Story of Ella Jenkins". Gloo Books. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  8. ^ "Ella Jenkins greeting 100th birthday with a biography storybook, Chicago celebrations". Chicago Sun-Times. August 1, 2024. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b c Peed, Mike (November 10, 2024). "Ella Jenkins, Musician Who Found an Audience in Children, Dies at 100". The New York Times. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
  10. ^ Jump up to:a b c Goldsmith, Peter David (1998). Making people's music: Moe Asch and Folkways records. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-1-56098-812-0.
  11. ^ Jump up to:a b c Ella Jenkins, interview with the author, May 10, 2007
  12. ^ "Ella Jenkins". The History Makers. August 5, 2002. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  13. ^ Limbong, Andrew (November 11, 2024). "Ella Jenkins, first lady of children's music, dies at 100". NPR.org. Retrieved November 11, 2024.
  14. ^ Trotter, LeeAnn (November 10, 2024). "Legendary Chicago singer-songwriter Ella Jenkins passes away at 100". NBC Chicago. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
  15. ^ "Artist: Ella Jenkins". Grammy.com. Recording Academy. n.d. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
  16. ^ Patricia Sheehan Campbell, "Recording Reviews," Ethnomusicology, Vol.46, No. 2 (2002), jstor.org (accessed May 2, 2007), p.357.
  17. ^ Liner notes from Call-And-Response Rhythmic Group Singing, Ella Jenkins, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW 45030, 1998, CD.
  18. ^ "United States Artists Official Website". Archived from the original on November 10, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2024.
  19. ^ "City of Chicago: Fifth Star Honors". Chicago.gov. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  20. ^ "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2017". Arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
  21. ^ "Ella Jenkins greeting 100th birthday with a biography storybook, Chicago celebrations". Chicago Sun-Times. August 1, 2024. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
  22. ^ "Ella Jenkins' 100th Birthday Party". Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
  23. ^ Jump up to:a b "Call and Response | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  24. ^ Jump up to:a b "Adventures in Rhythm | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  25. ^ "African-American Folk Rhythms | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  26. ^ Jump up to:a b "This-A-Way, That-A-Way | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  27. ^ Jump up to:a b "This is Rhythm | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  28. ^ Jump up to:a b "Rhythm and Game Songs for the Little Ones | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  29. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Song Rhythms and Chants for the Dance with Ella Jenkins; Interviews with "Dance People" | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  30. ^ Jump up to:a b "You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  31. ^ Jump up to:a b "Play Your Instruments and Make a Pretty Sound | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b "Counting Games and Rhythms For the Little Ones | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  33. ^ Jump up to:a b "A Long Time to Freedom | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  34. ^ Jump up to:a b "Rhythms of Childhood | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  35. ^ Jump up to:a b "Seasons for Singing | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  36. ^ Jump up to:a b "And One and Two | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  37. ^ Jump up to:a b "Smithsonian Folkways − Recording Details". Folkways.si.edu. Archived from the original on April 7, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2022.
  38. ^ Jump up to:a b "Little Johnny Brown with Ella Jenkins and Girls and Boys from "Uptown" ( Chicago) | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  39. ^ Jump up to:a b "Nursery Rhymes: Rhyming & Remembering for Young Children & for Older Girls & Boys with Special Language Needs | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  40. ^ Jump up to:a b "Jambo and Other Call and Response Songs and Chants | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  41. ^ "Growing Up with Ella Jenkins: Rhythms, Songs, and Rhymes | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  42. ^ "Travellin' with Ella Jenkins: A Bilingual Journey | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  43. ^ "Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  44. ^ "Looking Back and Looking Forward | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  45. ^ Jump up to:a b "Early Early Childhood Songs | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  46. ^ "Hopping Around from Place to Place, Vol. 1 | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  47. ^ "Hopping Around from Place to Place, Vol. 2 | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  48. ^ "We Are America's Children | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  49. ^ Jump up to:a b "Ella Jenkins Live at the Smithsonian (DVD) | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  50. ^ Jump up to:a b "For the Family! (DVD) | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  51. ^ "Come Dance By the Ocean | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  52. ^ "Multi-Cultural Children's Songs | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  53. ^ "Holiday Times | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  54. ^ "Songs Children Love to Sing | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  55. ^ "Songs and Rhythms from Near and Far | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  56. ^ "Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends Pulling Together | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  57. ^ "Sharing Cultures with Ella Jenkins and children from the LaSalle Language Academy of Chicago | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  58. ^ "cELLAbration: A Tribute to Ella Jenkins | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  59. ^ "African American Legacy Series: A Life of Song | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  60. ^ "New Ella Jenkins Album A Life of Song Available February 22". Smithsonian Folkways. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  61. ^ "Get Moving with Ella Jenkins | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  62. ^ "123s and ABCs | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  63. ^ "More Multicultural Songs From Ella Jenkins | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  64. ^ "Camp Songs with Ella Jenkins & Friends | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  65. ^ "cELLAbration Live! A Tribute to Ella Jenkins (DVD) | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Folkways.si.edu. May 28, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.

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Ella Jenkins, Musician Who Found an Audience in Children, Dies at 100

Performing and recording, she transformed what was seen as a marginal genre in the music industry into a celebration of shared humanity.

Listen to this article · 8:36 min Learn more
A black-and-white photo of a woman at a microphone, singing and playing a guitar.
Ella Jenkins performing in Denver in 1981. “There is no one who has done more for young people in American musical history than Ella Jenkins,” Dan Zanes, a children’s musician, said.Credit...Denver Post — Getty Images

By Mike Peed

Ella Jenkins, a self-taught musician who defied her industry’s norms by recording and performing solely for children, and in doing so transformed a marginal and moralistic genre into a celebration of a diverse yet common humanity with songs like “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song,” died on Saturday in Chicago. She was 100.

Her death was confirmed by John Smith, associate director at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Ms. Jenkins had no formal musical training, but she had an innate sense of rhythm. “I was always humming or singing and la-la, lu-lu or something,” she once said.

She absorbed the everyday melodies of her childhood — the playground clapping games, the high school sports chants, the calls of a sidewalk watermelon vendor hawking his produce. As an adult, she paired such singsong rhythms with original compositions and sought not simply to amuse or distract children but also to teach them to respect themselves and others.

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Against the sound of a kazoo, a harmonica, a variety of hand drums or, later, a baritone ukulele, Ms. Jenkins sang subtly instructive lyrics, as in “A Neighborhood Is a Friendly Place,” a song she wrote in 1976:

You can say hi
To friends passing by
A neighborhood is a friendly place.

You can say hello
To people that you know
A neighborhood is a friendly place.

Neighbors learn to share
Neighbors learn to care
A neighborhood is a friendly place.

Over children’s steady clapping, she recorded the age-old “A Sailor Went to Sea”:

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea
To see what he could see, see, see
And all that he could see, see, see
Was down in the bottom of the sea, sea, sea.

For many parents and classroom teachers, Ms. Jenkins’s renditions of traditional nursery rhymes like “Miss Mary Mack” and “The Muffin Man” are authoritative.

Still, from the beginning of her career in the 1950s, she pronounced her signature to be call-and-response, in which she asked her charges to participate directly in the music-making, granting them an equal responsibility in a song’s success. She had seen Cab Calloway employ the technique in “Hi-De-Ho,” and for her, the animating idea, veiled in a playful to-and-fro, was that everything good in the world was born of collaboration.

In one of her most popular recordings, Ms. Jenkins sings out, “Did you feed my cow?” “Yes, ma’am!” a group of children trumpet back. The song continues:

Could you tell me how?
Yes, ma’am!
What did you feed her?
Corn and hay!
What did you feed her?
Corn and hay!

As she repopularized time-honored children’s songs, she also gave the genre global scope. Before Ms. Jenkins, children’s music in the United States consisted primarily of simplified, often cartoonish renditions of classical music.

But her first album, released in 1957 with the unfussy title “Call-and-Response: Rhythmic Group Singing,” features West African and Arabic chants as well as one from an American chain gang, which students from the Howalton Day School, the first Black private school in Chicago, helped Ms. Jenkins perform:

There he goes
Way across the field
They’ll never catch him
He’s gone.

Strains of racial justice pervade Ms. Jenkins’s music. As a young adult, she learned freedom songs at meetings of the Congress of Racial Equality, and she performed at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rally at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1964.

To commemorate the United States’ bicentennial in 1976, she released the album “We Are America’s Children.” Alongside a version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” the album includes a medley honoring Native Americans and the song “Black Children Was Born,” a salute to Harriet Tubman, Bessie Smith and other Black luminaries.

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“I feel very strongly about making peace and love in the world,” Ms. Jenkins said.

Children sing on nearly all of Ms. Jenkins’s albums, and their mistakes were frequently left intact. A child’s premature clap on “Show Me,” from “Growing Up With Ella Jenkins” (1976), is followed, at the right moment, with a patient “Now clap.”

Ms. Jenkins released 39 albums, the last in 2017, and she spent her entire career with what is now Smithsonian Folkways Records. She was the label’s best-selling artist, and two of her albums — “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song” (1966) and “Multicultural Children’s Songs” (1995) — were its top releases.

Ms. Jenkins’s work received two nominations for the Grammy Award for best musical album for children, in 2000 and 2005. (She lost in 2005 to a tribute album of her own work.) In 2004, she was awarded the Grammy for lifetime achievement.

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A bearded man in a suit and tie holds an award to be presented to a smiling woman in a multicolored jacket.
Ms. Jenkins in 2004 at the Grammys, where she received a lifetime achievement award. With her is Neil Portnow, the chairman and chief executive of the Recording Academy.Credit...R. Diamond/WireImage — Getty Images

“There is no one who has done more for young people in American musical history than Ella Jenkins,” the children’s musician Dan Zanes has said.

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Gayle Wald, a scholar of African American studies at George Washington University, credits Ms. Jenkins’s success to the “democratic ethos” that her kaleidoscopic repertoire aimed to engender in children. “In the beautiful world her music conjures,” Ms. Wald wrote, “we respond to each other’s calls.”

Ella Louise Jenkins was born on Aug. 6, 1924, in St. Louis. Her father, Obadiah Jenkins, was a factory worker, and her mother, Annabelle Walker, was a domestic one.

Her parents’ marriage was short-lived, and at an early age Ella moved with her mother and her older brother, Thomas, to the South Side of Chicago.

Her family could not afford music lessons, so Ella practiced percussion on baking-soda cans and mimicked a kazoo by drawing a piece of paper across the teeth of a plastic comb. “If you knew a lot of tunes, you could make yourself sound pretty good,” she said.

At night, she sat on her living room floor and listened to her Uncle Floyd, whom she called Flood, play blues harmonica. She often cited those evenings as her deepest musical influence.

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Ella’s mother rebuked her for whistling — “A whistling girl and a crowing hen will come to no good end,” she would say — but she also worked overtime cleaning houses in Chicago’s wealthy neighborhoods so that she could buy her daughter a harmonica. The day Ella received the gift, she left it in a taxi while on her way to show it to Uncle Flood. “I cried for days and months,” she said.

Ms. Jenkins struggled to find work as a young Black woman in the early 1940s in a still-segregated Chicago. She was eventually hired to package K-rations at a converted Wrigley’s gum factory, and later found a job at the University of Chicago, where she delivered classified mail to Enrico Fermi and other atomic scientists working on the Manhattan Project in the school’s metallurgical laboratory.

In 1948, she won the Chicagoland Women’s Table Tennis Championship. She was invited to join the national table tennis team but could not afford the associated costs.

After a friend told Ms. Jenkins that community college was free, save for the cost of textbooks, she enrolled in Woodrow Wilson Junior College in Chicago. In 1951, she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from San Francisco State University.

She returned to Chicago and became a program director for a South Side Y.W.C.A., where she led children in song. At night, she played the conga drum in open-mic hootenannies.

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In 1956, a local television producer saw her performing for a group of children on the sidewalk and invited her to play on a Chicago public broadcasting program called “The Totem Club.” The appearance led to a regular segment for Ms. Jenkins, who named it “This Is Rhythm.”

Ms. Jenkins signed with Folkways that year, and after releasing “Call and Response” (1957), she began touring the country, and eventually the world, performing while collecting musical customs. Her travels led her to record a Maori battle chant, a Swahili counting song, a Mexican hand-clapping song and a Swiss yodeling song. Original compositions included “The World Is Big, the World Is Small.”

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A smiling white-haired woman looks into the camera.
Ms. Jenkins in 2014 posing for a portrait two days before her 90th birthday. “I feel very strongly about making peace and love in the world,” she once said.Credit...Spencer M. Green/Associated Press

Children will “discover that although some things are different, many things are the same,” Ms. Jenkins wrote in the liner notes to “Multicultural Children’s Songs.” “Almost everywhere people count, balloons pop and friends say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you.’”

She is survived by her longtime companion, Bernadelle Richter, who was also her manager.

Ms. Jenkins continued to perform into her 90s, often ending with her song “Shake Hands With Friends,” from 1976:

Shake hands with friends
It’s time to go.
And I hope I’ll see you another day.

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