Pick of the Day: The Mighty Sky (CD)

The Mighty Sky. CD. 31:31 min. with lyrics. NewSound Kids. 2012. ISBN unavail. $14.98.
K-Gr 4–This production is the brain child of Grammy nominee and NAMMY’s Songwriter of the Year (given by the Native American Music Association), Beth Nielsen Chapman. She was joined in the effort by songwriter Annie Roboff and lyricist Rocky Alvey, director of the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. The trio has put together a fantastic album of 11 songs in various musical styles including rock, doo wop, zydeco, English music hall, country, blues, and folk. Chapman’s vocals are excellent, as are the instrumental performances on acoustic guitar, slide guitar, banjo, mandolin, piano, keyboards, flute, piccolo, penny whistle, trumpet, drums, percussion, theremin, harmonica, blues harp, accordion, squeeze box, and Jews harp. The songs, mostly about objects in outer space, include “The Mighty Sky,” “Through Hubble’s Eyes” (Dr. C. R. O’Dell, founding scientist of the Hubble Space Telescope, describes it as a time machine when it looks out at distant galaxies), “The Big Bang Boom,” “The Moon,” “Little Big Song,” “Rockin’ Little Neutron Star” (the rhythm track is an actual recording of the Vela Pulsar, 1000 light years away), “Zodiacal Zydeco,” “Test, Re-test and Verify,” “The Way That We Lean,” “You Can See the Blues,” and “There Is No Darkness.” The lyrics insert unfolds into a poster with awesome photos and outer space facts. This outstanding album belongs in every library’s collection of music for children.–Beverly Wrigglesworth, San Antonio Public Library, TX