Dan Zanes
Encyclopedia
The Del Fuegos
-History:Formed in 1980, the Boston-based band gained success in 1984 due to success of their songs "Don't Run Wild" and "I Still Want You" and appearing in a widely-seen television commercial for a beer company...
and is currently the front man of the Grammy-winning group Dan Zanes and Friends
Dan Zanes and Friends
-History:When Dan Zanes and his wife had a baby, they moved to New York City. Zanes subsequently began playing music with a group of fathers that he had met in West Village playgrounds who were also there with their kids...
.
History
Dan Zanes was born in Exeter, New HampshireExeter, New Hampshire
Exeter is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The town's population was 14,306 at the 2010 census. Exeter was the county seat until 1997, when county offices were moved to neighboring Brentwood...
, in 1961, and spent his childhood in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and then in Fredericton, New Brunswick
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Fredericton is the capital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, by virtue of the provincial parliament which sits there. An important cultural, artistic, and educational centre for the province, Fredericton is home to two universities and cultural institutions such as the Beaverbrook Art...
. He attended Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
in Andover, Massachusetts
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
. Zanes ended up living on the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
.
He started playing guitar when he was eight and began taking Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
records out of the public library as soon as he was old enough to get a library card; according to his mother, "He was always very musical."
In 1981, Zanes went to Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, where he was determined to start a really cool band. In the breakfast line on the very first day at Oberlin, he met up with former high school classmate Tom Lloyd. Zanes and Lloyd took their breakfast back to the dorm and immediately started a band and soon left school and headed to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
("It was between Boston and Austin," according to Zanes), where they became known as The Del Fuegos.
The Del Fuegos
The Del Fuegos played in lofts, bars, warehouses, small art galleries, clubs, barns, college dining halls, fraternity houses, gymnasiums, auditoriums, and, finally, big theaters.Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
named the Del Fuegos "Best New Band" in 1984. Once, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
jumped on stage to play "Hang on Sloopy" with them. With the Del Fuegos, Zanes made several records — The Longest Day (1984), Boston, Mass (1985), Stand Up (1987), Smoking in the Fields (1989) — and had a hit single, Don't Run Wild. In 1987, Zanes married Paula Greif, the director of the video for the Del Fuegos song, I Still Want You.
Children's music
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Zanes subsequently began playing music with a group of other fathers that he had met in West Village playgrounds who were also there with their kids. These fathers playing music together eventually became The Wonderland String Band, which played at parks and parties and on a tape of songs that Zanes recorded at his home.
The tape was a hit locally—i.e. on the playgrounds where he and his daughter played—and Zanes realized that he liked making music that families could enjoy together, as opposed to music that is just for children or just for adults. So, he added a small number of women to his band, renamed it the Rocket Ship Revue, and began making a full-length homemade album, enlisting the help of some people he had met when he was a Del Fuego--Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
, Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
, and Simon Kirke
Simon Kirke
Simon Kirke is an English rock drummer best known as a member of Free and Bad Company.-Biography:...
, the drummer for Bad Company
Bad Company
Bad Company were an English rock supergroup founded in 1973, consisting of two former Free band members — singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke — as well as Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who, in years prior, was a key component of...
.
The album, Rocket Ship Beach (2000), was also a hit. The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
called it "cool", and added, "Mostly, though, Zanes' kids music works because it is not kids music; it's just music—-music that's unsanitized, unpasteurized, that's organic even." Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
and Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
made guest appearances on the album. The second album, Family Dance (2001) is composed of dance songs from a wide variety of musical traditions and features Loudon Wainwright III
Loudon Wainwright III
Loudon Snowden Wainwright III is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle.To...
and Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of the late country music singer Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin....
. The third recording, the more mellow Night Time! (2002), features collaborations with Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.-Early life:Aimee Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, graduated from Open High School in 1978 and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, John Doe
John Doe
The name "John Doe" is used as a placeholder name in a legal action, case or discussion for a male party, whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons. The name is also used to refer to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown...
, Dar Williams
Dar Williams
Dar Williams is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk.She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis.-Biography:Williams was born...
, and other established musicians.
The fourth album in the family series is House Party (2003), a rambunctious 20-song collection with a diverse instrumentation that, in addition to the usual guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
s, upright bass and drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, includes such instruments as tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, pump organ, djembe
Djembe
A djembe also known as jembe, jenbe, djbobimbe, jymbe, yembe, or jimbay, or sanbanyi in Susu; is a skin-covered drum meant played with bare hands....
and saw
Musical saw
A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...
. House Party was nominated for a Grammy in the Musical Album for Children category. Music video selections from the House Party album played during the Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
's morning program suite known as Playhouse Disney
Playhouse Disney
Playhouse Disney was Disney Channel's television block for programs aimed at entertaining preschool aged children, often airing as its own channel outside the United States. It was introduced in 1997 after Disney Channel's move to basic cable from premium cable, with a target audience of children...
from 2005-2007. New music video selections occasionally play on Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon is a US cable TV channel.Nickelodeon may also refer to:-In television:*Spinoffs of the Nickelodeon channel:** Nickelodeon Magazine, a children's magazine.** Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park....
's Noggin.
In 2007, Zanes received the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Musical Album for Children
Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children
The Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children was an honor presented to recording artists for quality children's music albums at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
for Catch That Train! (2006) and produced a children's reggae CD with Father Goose called "Its a Bam Bam Diddly", which also features songs performed by Sister Carol
Sister Carol
Carol Theresa East , known by her stage name of Sister Carol, is a Jamaican reggae recording artist....
and Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
. [1]
In early 2009, Zanes' ¡Nueva York! (2008) won in The 8th Annual Independent Music Awards
The Independent Music Awards
The Independent Music Awards is an international program that honors top-ranked independent artists and releases in more than 50 Album, Song, Music Video and Design categories....
for Best Children's Music Album.
His seventh album 76 Trombones (2009) was a Broadway/Showtune themed album, featuring guest vocalists Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
, Carol Channing
Carol Channing
Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
, and Brian Stokes Mitchell
Brian Stokes Mitchell
Brian Stokes Mitchell is an American stage, film and television actor. A powerful baritone, he has been one of the central leading men of the Broadway theatre since the early 1990s...
.
Trivia
Zanes is a public supporter of several charities. Zanes donates some of the proceeds from Family Dance and Night Time! to the non-profit world hunger organization Heifer InternationalHeifer International
Heifer International is a global nonprofit with the goal of ending poverty and hunger in a sustainable fashion. Established in 1944, Heifer International gives out gifts of livestock, seeds and trees and extensive training to those in need...
.
With the Del Fuegos
- The Longest Day (1984)
- Boston, Mass. (1985)
- Spin Radio Concert (1985)
- Stand Up (1987)
- Smoking in the Fields (1989)
Children's music
- Rocket Ship Beach (2000)
- Family Dance (2001)
- Night Time! (2002)
- House Party (2003)
- Catch That Train! (2006)
- The Welcome Table (2008)
- ¡Nueva York! (2008)
- 76 Trombones (2009)
- Little Nut Tree (2011)
Traditional music
- Sea Music (2002)
- including Oh ShenandoahOh Shenandoah"Oh Shenandoah" is a traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early 19th century...
, The John B. SailsThe John B. Sails"The John B. Sails" is a folk song that first appeared in a 1917 American novel, Pieces of Eight, written by Richard Le Gallienne. The "secret" narrator of the story describes it as "one of the quaint Nassau ditties," the first verse and chorus of which are:-1950 to 1963:Among others, the song has...
, and Deep Blue Sea - Parades and Panoramas: 25 Songs Collected by Carl Sandburg for the American Songbag (2004)
- including The Midnight Train, Hallelujah, I'm a BumHallelujah, I'm a Bum"Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" is an American folk song that responds with humorous sarcasm to unhelpful moralizing about the circumstance of being a hobo....
, and Lord LovelLord Lovel-Synopsis:A lord tells the lady he loves that he is going in a journey that will take several years. After a time, he longs to see her. He returns whereupon he hears of her death, and dies of grief....