It’s hard to imagine Jimi Hendrix, after making his career-launching appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, retreating to a smaller stage to perform for a rambunctious bunch of 9-year-olds. Even less likely would be a Red Hot Chili Peppers set for kids at the disastrous Woodstock ’99, which ended with a riot that no child — or adult, for that matter — should have been near. But, as today’s music festival organizers try to attract entire families, children’s stages and family tents are becoming increasingly common. The trend isnot confined to the places you’d expect, as upstate New York’s Falcon Ridge Folk Festival; this year’s Lollapalooza and other rock festivals have gotten into the act, too. On a smaller scale, the Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival always has found a space for the kids, and this weekend is no different. But, alongwith its perennially popular percussion workshops, the festival this year will feature, on its the children’sstage, two folk artists best known for entertaining adults: SONiA (of the band disappear fear) and Ellis Paul.
When it comes to performing for younger crowds, the duo will arrive in Norwich with very different levels of experience. SONiA has played for children and teens across the United States, as well as overseas in such diverse places as New Zealand and the Palestinian territories. Paul, on the other hand, will do his first-ever kids’ set at Colorscape — which, he admitted in a recent interview, is more than a little daunting. (Both also will perform regular sets on the Colorscape main stage this weekend.)
When asked about it earlier this month, SONiA pointed out that, while her “adult” shows are pretty much G-rated (as are Paul’s), children’s shows require a certain skill and interactive component to hold young attentions. SONiA has a pair of nephews and believes she can tap into what kids want: “There’s a big part of being a child still in me. … I remember what things were exciting and what things scared me as a kid. I’m in touch with that part of myself, so I can work within those parameters and make the show work that way.”
Paul is diving head-first into children’s music because of his two young daughters. His new CD, “The Dragonfly Races” (set for release by year’s end), is a kids’ album of original songs quite unlike what he’s written before. “It’s a lot more casual than writing for adults,” he said about “Dragonfly Races.” “I don’t put it through the editing grinder, the line-by-line kind of grinder — in fact, the better the song is, the more likely my unconscious mind was let loose, without second-guessing myself, so I could be as silly or goofy as I wanted to be. I definitely wanted it to feel like an Ellis Paul record at the same time, so the songs have the same kind of twists that my adult songs do.” Among the songs, Paul said, are a few with peace themes “The Million Chameleon March,” about an all-lizard protest in Washington, D.C. — but a few are just for fun.
SONiA has a favorite original that she includes in a children’s set: “There’s a song that I wrote with my nephew, who was 5½ at the time, called ‘Turtle Flowers’ — it was from a finger-painting thing he had done in kindergarten. I said, ‘Dylan, are those turtle flowers?’ and he said (emphatically), ‘Yes, they are!’”
Both performers know that hooking the adults is also key to success. SONiA often tries to invoke a little 1960s nostalgia with “Leaving on a Jet Plane” — “at the risk of being enormously hokey,” she said. But Paul is still working out a strategy for a dual audience. “The more the mothers and fathers are engaged, the more kids become engaged — they’re sort of co-conspirators in that 40-minute set. And, uh, I don’t know how I’m going to do that!” he admitted with a laugh. “I know how to engage adults at an adult show, but I don’t know how to engage adults at a children’s show.” Hopefully it'll all work out fine, but at least he can take heart in this: If things go badly, a children's set is generally shorter than one for adults.