Urban Folk music reviews

Music for Little People yet again proves its prowess at laying down grooves that both kids and their parents want to plug into with the 13th release in its exceptional Celebration series. A Child's Celebration of Soul is among the rare handful of kids' records that prompt a right-minded adult to reread the CD jewel case carefully, just to be sure its contents are no accident. Is it possible the same child who asks persistently for repeat plays of Barney's Greatest Hits might one day clamor instead for classic soul nuggets such as Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and Aretha Franklin's "Respect"? Celebration effectively blankets the soul bases, offering a taste of everything from the blue-eyed variety to early Motown to the Memphis blues, light style. Better yet, a couple of these numbers--James Brown's fabulously funked-up "Get on the Good Foot" and Gladys Knight & the Pips' full-throttled "Friendship Train" in particular--deliver this music's roots, stitched tightly to the social themes of its time, to the table. A more festive, positive-vibe-producing opportunity to tackle the subject of racial unrest with the kids is not likely to arise; neither, for that matter, is the chance to cut the rug with one's very own rug rats to Robert Parker's "Barefootin'." Above all, this record is an onramp for lucky young listeners to the timeless sound of classic soul music, whose top talents even today remain musically unsurpassable. --Tammy La Gorce

Must I Paint You a Picture is a generous, two-disc, 40-track survey of Bragg's career to date. The tracklisting was apparently assembled with the help of Bragg's fans, who were asked to vote for their favourites on Bragg's website, but this democratic initiative has only been taken so far: while "Little Time Bomb", for example, was a more popular choice than, say, "The Boy Done Good", the latter is included and the former isn't. It would, of course, be uncharitable to suggest that this is reflective of the authoritarian instincts that lurk inside most socialists.

At any rate, though Bragg has always been chiefly characterised as a political songwriter, his best work has always been that which deals with the politics of the personal: there are few more acute summations of the eternal failure of the male and female to make sense to each other than his "How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?" Bragg's superb love songs and love-gone-wrong songs are well represented here, from the angry, naive scratchings of "The Milkman of Human Kindness" to such older, if no wiser, musings as "Moving the Goalposts" and "Sulk". Curiously, his older, politically motivated songs now feel like they've reacquired an urgency they lacked during a 1990s largely devoid of stark ideological boundaries, when they sounded rather like quaint period pieces. The so-called war on terror and the increasing discomfort about global trade both have ready made soundtracks in "Between the Wars" and "There is Power in a Union". --Andrew Mueller