Ella Jenkins

Ella Jenkins stood as a foundational presence in children's folk music, sustaining a recording presence that extended across seven decades. Parents and educators alike prized her focus on themes such as cultural diversity and ecological awareness alongside preschool fundamentals including numbers and spelling, a perspective she traced to the vibrant musical environment of her Chicago childhood. Across more than three dozen albums her steady, inviting voice delivered both sung melodies and spoken segments without condescension, beginning with the 1957 release Call-and-Response that gathered American, Arabic, and regional African chants. During the 1960s Play Your Instruments and Make a Pretty Sound (1968) examined music-making itself, while We Are America's Children (1976) addressed diversity through her customary blend of traditional and original material. Among her 1980s projects was the activity-oriented Looking Back and Looking Forward (1981), and Come Dance by the Ocean (1992) promoted awareness of the natural world. Sharing Cultures with Ella Jenkins appeared in 2003, weaving multiple languages together with styles that ranged from blues to traditional Irish music. In 2004 she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2017 Camp Songs marked sixty years as a Folkways artist.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in August 1924, Ella Jenkins spent her formative years in several south-side Chicago neighborhoods. An uncle introduced her to blues performers including T-Bone Walker and Big Bill Broonzy, prompting her to teach herself harmonica and ukulele. As her family relocated, she absorbed the playground rhythms and rhymes of successive classmates. She also absorbed gospel music from neighborhood churches, studied tap dancing, and attended theater performances by figures such as Cab Calloway and Count Basie, later crediting the former with sparking her interest in call-and-response singing. Friendships formed at Woodrow Wilson Junior College and San Francisco State University broadened her knowledge of other musical traditions while she pursued studies in sociology, child psychology, and recreation, culminating in a bachelor's degree earned in 1951. Back in Chicago she took volunteer and salaried roles at recreation centers and youth camps, guiding singing activities that led her to begin composing children's songs. After guesting on another public television program she was invited to host This Is Rhythm. Her debut children's album, Call-and-Response, reached Folkways Recordings in 1957.

Adventures in Rhythm followed in 1959, guiding students at her Rhythm Workshop from basic to intricate patterns. African-American Folk Rhythms (1960) honored African-American musical traditions, and Rhythms of Childhood (1963) combined standards such as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Kumbaya" with several originals. The 1964 titles Songs and Rhythms from Near and Far, Rhythm and Game Songs for the Little Ones, and Counting Games and Rhythms for the Little Ones likewise emphasized rhythmic play. You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song (1966) became one of her most popular releases. She closed the decade with Play Your Instruments and Make a Pretty Sound (1968) and A Long Time to Freedom (1969), the latter gathering traditional African-American songs alongside originals such as "If You Ever Get Down" and "Freedom's Coming Mighty Soon" and proving equally suitable for adult listeners.

Season for Singing (1970) captured live call-and-response exchanges at a workshop, while And One and Two (1971) addressed preschool-aged children. My Street Begins at My House (1971) drew from segments of her television series The Me-Too Show. Little Johnny Brown appeared the same year, presenting traditional pieces including "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and "Mexican Hand-Clapping Chant" for listeners aged five to ten. This-A-Way, That-A-Way (1973) was recorded with children in Tennessee, and Jambo and Other Call and Response Songs and Chants (1974) featured lyrics in English and Swahili. Nursery Rhymes: Rhyming & Remembering for Young Children & for Older Girls & Boys with Special Language Needs followed later in 1974. Marking the United States bicentennial, We Are America's Children (1976) honored history and diversity, while Growing Up with Ella Jenkins that same year presented twenty songs performed with nursery-school children. Songs, Rhythms & Chants for the Dance (1977) and Travellin' with Ella (1979) constituted her twentieth and twenty-first albums.

Jenkins opened the 1980s with I Know the Colors in the Rainbow and Looking Back and Looking Forward, both issued in 1981 and featuring children from Chicago's St. Vincent de Paul Center. Early Early Childhood Songs appeared the following year. The Chicago Children's Choir participated in Hopping Around from Place to Place, Vol. 1 (1983), which included selections such as "I'm Going to Cairo" and "I Know a City Called Okeechobee." Vol. 2 arrived shortly afterward, containing tracks such as "Texas Is the Lone Star State" and "Let's Go Up in Space."

Beyond recording and hosting children's television programs, Jenkins toured widely throughout the twentieth century, performing on every continent and appearing on network broadcasts including The Today Show. When she returned to the studio in 1990 the result was Come Dance by the Ocean, an environmentally themed collection featuring songs about animals along with "Solution to Pollution" and "Let's Not Waste the Food We Eat." The videos Live at the Smithsonian and For the Family! both appeared in 1991. Two years later the album This Is Rhythm was issued together with an illustrated songbook. In 1996 she released the multicultural Holiday Times followed by the anthology Songs Children Love to Sing celebrating forty years with Folkways. Her thirtieth studio album, Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends (1999), combined songs, recitations, and poetry and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Album for Children.

Jenkins reached eighty in 2004, the year she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as the first children's-music artist so honored. That year she also issued Sharing Cultures with Ella Jenkins, recorded with children from Chicago's LaSalle Language Academy, which received a Grammy nomination for best musical children's album the following year. cELLAbration: A Tribute to Ella Jenkins, featuring contributions from Tom Chapin, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and John McCutcheon, won the category. A Life of Song appeared in 2011, presenting songs and stories by Jenkins. She returned in 2013 with the movement-oriented Get Moving with Ella Jenkins, and 2014 brought 123s and ABCs together with More Multicultural Songs from Ella Jenkins. Camp Songs (2017) marked sixty years since her Folkways debut. That year she also received the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for a lifetime devoted to folk and traditional arts. Ella Jenkins died on November 9, 2024, at the age of 100.