The Gay Uncle’s friend Anna Louise Ogden Padgett (her real name) is a preschool teacher, and a musician. She recorded and performed with her band the Naysayer for years. Then she had a kid. And like most people who have kids, her life collapsed around her in a shitstorm of breastfeeding, diapers, and, well…shit itself. But did that stop her? No. Not this smart and savvy Texas girl. What did she do? She did what every other musician with a kid does, she recorded an album of kids’ music! If it can work to revive the careers of people like Rick Springfield and Ziggy Marley–and win a Grammy for too-clever-by-half indie daddies They Might Be Giants–there must be some magic in it. So Gunc gave The Good Ms. Padgett a listen.
Sadly, The G.U. doesn’t really know how to respond to children’s music. When he ran a preschool in Manhattan’s East Village, he never touched the stuff. There was an old record player in the classroom, and he would play albums he picked up for pennies at junk shops by his weekend place in the Catskills: Louis Prima, Tito Puente, Persuasive Percussion does Cha-Cha, Dionne Warwick sings Burt Bacharach, Gil Scott Heron. Or he’d make up songs with the kids while out walking around the neighborhood. More than one now-teenage former student has told him that they cannot wait for the walk signal without thinking of the Gay Uncle’s hit, “Across the Street”.
All that said, he thinks your kid might like Anna’s album. It’s funny. It has instructions for how to move along to it, which he knows children appreciate since they’re kind of dim and lack creativity. And, most importantly–for him, and for young kids–it has a scatological bent, featuring songs like “I’m a Little Girl with Doodoo in My Pants” and the Gay Uncle’s favorite, “Don’t Put Your Feet in Your Doodoo”. So what are you waiting for? Click here and listen and purchase.