When I heard about this CD, I thought it was a totally cool idea and was excited to hear it. What I heard was that it was a record made by fathers for their children. I imagined it would be children’s songs set to rock and blues guitar to make them cool – something to introduce children to good music. With names like Slash, Peter Frampton, Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan to back it up, I imagined it could be nothing short of great. The product proved otherwise.
“Sing a Song with Six Strings” is a collection of songs written for, about or because of children. They don’t carry a good continuity, and the music is pretty weak. The best songs are the instrumentals that are pushed to the end of the CD, by which time most people will have stopped listening.
The songs individually show marked ups and downs. Peter Frampton’s “Mia Rose” is a good song, but not strong enough to stand out sandwiched between two slow and uninteresting tracks. Keb’ Mo’ has an awesomely rich voice, reminiscent of back-in-the-day soul singers, but his song, “Grandma’s Hands” is nothing short of silly. Slash has one track on the CD – his instrumental attempt to make the children’s song “Sing a Song of Sixpence” rock. Unfortunately, even he can’t make it off and save the CD. Likewise with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Santana’s efforts – they just aren’t good enough to make the album palatable. The last four tracks are all instrumental, and should have been mixed throughout the CD, as they are the best and, if well placed, might have given the record a better flow.
The goal of this album was to make a heartfelt album for fathers and children to listen to together, but all in all it’s sappy and poorly arranged. Perhaps I am just not the right audience to be critiquing the CD, but I can’t figure out who the target audience is. Some of the songs are for kids, some for fathers, and some are just about children. When putting the album together they should have focused on one of these audiences instead of lumping these songs together. But, as it is, the album falls short and barely kept my attention.
The artists on the CD are Kyle Cook, Peter Frampton, Marc Ford, Keb’ Mo’, Vernon Reid, Slash, Carl Perkins, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jorma Kaukonen, Craig Ross, Don DeLeo, Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel.
