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"What a musical treat!
Stefan's creative, child-centered songs
are a perfect jumping off point
for Ken Whiteley and Sharkey McEwen's
tasty musicianship and fine production work."

Fred Koch, BestChildrensMusic.com

"If ever there was an epiphany
of musical inspiration, this is it.."

KVMR FM, Nevada City

Songs For the Young and the Young at Heart

(Click on the song titles to hear them in RealAudio.)

Time of Wonder, Stefan des Lauriers' family and children's CD, focuses primarily on the triumph of human spirit. Many of the 18 songs mirror Stefan's challenged ascent into mystical thin air.

The first song, Lion's Big Debut, is a shaggy conductor story of perseverance through a fizzling musical menagerie. Children will love the showcase of instruments that belong (and don't belong) in an orchestra. When Stefan told his friend the maestro about the 'porcupine on bagpipes puncturing them with holes,' he said, "There are no bagpipes in my orchestra."

Even if yer flat pick broke you can still enjoy Jamboree, a knee slapping, toe tapping, tongue twisting bluegrass song: "City folk, committee folk, Itty bitty kiddy følk, All know there's no harm in harmony."

"On a run down railway track, That's seen its better days, We're standing back to back, Must we go our separate ways." Pedal steel and chugging blues harp breeze through this bluegrass groove with dynamic locomotion. When weeds grow between the ties, The Great Engineer appears to spirit us away.

Dinosaurs Demise comes alive with Ken Whiteley's electric slide guitar and jaws harp—and offers wacky theories as to why the big ones had to go: "The purple dinosaur went up the volcano, Out came the lava and scorched his scaly toe, Up to the top to better see the stars, Volcano erupted and sent him off to Mars."

Two whales search for each other in all the wrong oceans in Blue Whale Blues, a topical reggae piece featuring organic Leslie organ. "Two whales almost meet one time, a little south of Cape Horn, but an iceberg came between, and left them quite forlorn." To these lovesick whales the Panama Canal was not an option.

Time to Say Goodnight, a lively, harmonica-enhanced lullaby, embraces environmentally correct bedtime thoughts: "Let Mr. Sun shine on distant shores, May the world turn a little more green, May children who are yet unborn, Live to breathe air that's clean." One man's sunset is another man's sunrise.

Yodeling Frog ultimately succeeds when his progeny studies with an opera queen. (Renée des Lauriers makes her recording debut here with back up vocals.) When the artist premiered this melodious ballad at Fat Alberts Eternal Coffee House on March 17, 1976, he wore an elaborate green velvet frog costume. "Now he sticks to catching flies, And sings sometimes sweet lullabies."

Sunflowers sprout from the tears of former foes gathered on the battlefield: "You may turn your tanks to tractors, You may plow your battlefields in a row, But you've got to plant your seeds with love, If you want a good thing to grow." .

Sharkey's acoustic guitar evokes a mountain climber, a little over the hill, as he returns to the scene of the climb: "Now I'm gonna make it, I've crossed the abyss, But what is this mountain, Does it really exist." Vision of Victory— Stefan's signature song—is about climbing a mountain out of shape.

A Little Red Bug reminds the artist of his fictitious Volkswagen as it walks upon a watercolor in progress: "A drop of rain fell on a whim, It hit my work and drew me in." The song is purely metaphysical. Almost every line contains a word or concept above the heads of most children—but they can grow into the meaning.

An ambitious figure skater deflects a budding poet's crush in Heart of Snow: "On a pond at the edge of wood, A young girl figure skates, Her eyes sparkle in a flood, Of endless figure eights." A young boy inscribes the name of girl he adores in a Heart of Snow as she glides blithely beyond his reach.

Everyone winds up a monkey in Wind-up Monkey Dance: "The family tree was shaken and no monkey dropped on you." This ragtime line extravaganza was fabricated especially for kids who have the tenacity to step out of line—and for people who get negative energy through animated complaints.

Calliope style finger picking, fretless banjo and accordion conjure a world class clown tripping through life's circus train When the Silver Whistle Blows. Throughout the song the Emmit Kelly character walks through the train as a dice game is in progress, tipping his Dollar Derby to his beloved cohorts.

The artist puts himself in grandpas' dancing shoes to sing Soft Shoe, a post Vaudeville følk tune: "With a bench for a bed all covered in dew, My only cover was yesterdays' news."

Spitting in the Eye of a Hurricane, a somewhat upbeat folk anthem, brings ethereal questions down to earth: The first verse came as a challenge to come up with something profound in thirty words or less: "Does the river begin with one drop of rain?"

Mr. Poet seeks financial support for his lofty craft in Jet Fuel Folderol: "My song was getting lengthy, But I couldn't end it all, With solitary rhyme scheme, I strained my wherewithal."

Junkyard in the Sky—a song for aging astronauts—was written long before John Glen's reentry of the Century: "When it's time to hurl this hubcap, To that junkyard in the sky."

The artist hires a double decker bus to take old friends on a Tour de Farce, an eclectic følk rock number with breath taking harmonica interludes: "Turning on Yonge and we'll head to the Tower, To see if the world rotates." The line: 'There's where we'd meet with our circle of friends, at the Archer, for a skate,' contrasts the revolving CN Tower to the movement of the skaters. At the time I was sharing with a fellow følksinger my sadness upon losing my ground breaking job as a jackhammer operator.

"What a musical treat!
Stefan's creative, child-centered songs
are a perfect jumping off point
for Ken Whiteley and Sharkey McEwen's
tasty musicianship and fine production work."

Fred Koch, BestChildrensMusic.com

Produced by Sharkey McEwan and Ken Whiteley on the Music Kingdom label, Whiteley's roots and følk expertise as a multi instrumentalist blends well with McEwan's masterful pop and rock guitar.

Reviews and Interviews

Like the best of children's literature, the songs are entertaining at a child's level, and yet there is a lot going on that will only be discovered by a more mature mind. Review by David Kleiner

"This is music the family, adults and children, can listen to and enjoy together."Review by Bob McKenzie

"This may look like a children's album but it's not just for kids." Stefan's Interview with Ruth Eddy

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