Children's Corner: Elizabeth Mitchell's You are My Sunshine

I told my two-year old son, Samuel, I would lay down with him for one song, and then it would be naptime. We often play Elizabeth Mitchell’s You are My Sunshine while Samuel goes to sleep. Mitchell’s album is soothing but rhythmic, full of childhood sweetness but creatively mature.

As I laid there, though, I remembered how Mitchell’s You are My Sunshine isn’t really a lullaby CD. It works that way, though, because she has a voice like Mindy Smith. When Smith’s “Come to Jesus” was released in 2004, I said that she has “has all of the Appalachian tones of bluegrass snuggled with blues, country, and folk,” and “Come to Jesus” was a lullaby in a bluesy country rock disguise. Mitchell is like the lullaby realized.

Elsewhere, I also hear Suzanne Vega in Mitchell’s voice—a warm closeness, coming to near to having talky bits, folky, rootsy, and a bit bluesy. This is combined with that rhythmic sense that Mitchell lends to this collection of traditional tunes and covers, along with one original (“Alphabet Dub,” cowritten with Warren Defever and Daniel Littleton).

It’s a quiet, folky, hip hop beat on “Alphabet Dub,” which is why I shouldn’t let this CD just be a bedtime/naptime companion. Mitchell is comforting, hushed, left of center, living on the second floor in that “we almost didn’t see you there” way, but turn up the volume, and there’s plenty to make the kids and adults shake their groove thang.

Other standout tracks: “Hey, Bo Diddley” (kids and the blues always make a fine pairing) and “Ladybug Picnic” (who else covers Sesame Street songs like this?).

Check out Elizabeth Mitchell’s website and her band with Daniel Littleton, Ida.