Caspar Babypants

The children's music project Caspar Babypants has built a broad following with its playful folk material, which also earned a Grammy Award nomination. Seattle-based musician Chris Ballew started the venture in the early 2000s and kept up a steady output across two decades, issuing multiple original albums such as 2009's More Please! as well as two sets of Beatles covers. Easy Breezy!, the twenty-first Babypants release, came out in 2021.

Ballew began putting children's folk songs on record as Caspar Babypants in 2009. Already known from the rock scene as frontman of the 1990s alternative band Presidents of the United States of America, he had made his first children's recording in 2002 to benefit the non-profit Program for Early Parent Support. After meeting collage artist Kate Endle, who later became his wife, he launched songwriting and recording under the Caspar Babypants name, with Endle shaping the project's visual style. Once Here I Am! appeared in 2009, collaborators Fred Northup and Ron Hippe joined to expand his gentle, fanciful songs, serving as the live band and contributing to most recordings through 2012. From 2012 onward Ballew has performed primarily alone. Besides numerous original albums such as Rise and Shine! (2014) and Away We Go! (2016), he also released two Beatles covers collections titled Baby Beatles! and Beatles Baby!. His thirteenth Caspar Babypants album, Jump for Joy!, arrived in 2017. Further releases followed in subsequent years, among them 2019's Grammy-nominated Flying High! and 2021's Easy Breezy!.