Sukey Talks To Kidskintha.com about her new CD “Five Little Oysters!
Hi! I’m delighted to announce the upcoming Oct. 5th release of my brand new album, Five Little Oysters! Co-produced with my long time friend and Grammy winning recording engineer Larry Alexander. Five Little Oysters features lots of old time traditional favorites along with original new tunes and story. Here are some excerpts from an interview I gave with Megan Meehan at Kidskintha. Enjoy! You can click on the link HERE to see the full interview.
Megan Meehan: What is unique and most exciting about your forthcoming album?
Sukey Molloy: Larry Alexander and I were absolutely thrilled to uncover and bring new life to so many traditional songs, and to arrange them with so many layers of special effects, instrumentation, percussion, and creative nuance. We always keep the children in mind, and never hold back when looking for that perfect sound to enter directly into a child’s delicate world. Larry and I spent hours looking for that ‘just right’ train sound for “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”
We also had great fun with some of my new songs, bringing the melodies and lyrics and sounds alive with exceptional musicians who have been on all my albums. It is such a treat and honor to have so many extraordinary musicians to call upon…
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MM: What inspires your songs and do you typically write lyrics or melodies first?
SM: What inspires my songs is being together with families and children, and learning what brings them into relation with each other, and the activities we engage in together, whether on stage or in a library or at a school.
To support learning and self-expression, I love to change up lyrics to traditional songs. It’s fascinating how a song will last for hundreds of years. What is it about that song that keeps calling us back? I choose a song, like “It’s Raining It’s Pouring” (“A Tisket a Tasket”) and develop it so the children can participate while singing. I think carefully how each new verse relates developmentally to the age and interest of the child, and can serve learning, creativity, fun, and a sense of self…
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MM: Is there anything else that you would like to mention?
SM: Celebrity Parents Magazine wrote: “Sukey is deniably today’s Mister Rogers.”
This is the highest compliment I could receive. In Mister Rogers’ acceptance speech for an award from PBS, he said that the six feet of space between the television screen, and the child viewing, is for him, ‘sacred’ – and this has remained the guiding principle in all my work.
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I have a little story to leave you with. My husband and I were at Colonial Williamsburg years back with our two sons, Jonathan, a baby, and James, 5.
We were never a big television family, but James watched Mister Rogers faithfully and loved him. We were strolling along the village walkways, with James pretending to be a soldier, and we spotted a large carriage, drawn by four large horses. There was a camera crew both in front and behind, and when I pointed, James suddenly called out, ‘Mister Rogers!’ and started running full speed toward the scene. We ran behind him, and sure enough, there was Mister Rogers, sitting up in the front of the carriage, being filmed! When Mister Rogers saw this little five-year-old boy running toward the carriage, he stopped the crew, halted the horses, and opened his arms wide. James ran up the three carriage steps and right onto Mister Rogers’ lap. My husband and I watched as Mister Rogers asked him his name, spoke with him about ‘things’, and then after a bit, in the most natural and respectful way, told James it was time for him to continue on. They had a handshake, or a hug, I can’t remember which, then waved goodbye, and off Mister Rogers went, down the road in his horse drawn carriage, out of sight.
It was deeply affirming to find that Mister Rogers was truly the same humble man we knew on screen, and to witness him give his love to our child.
