Rooted in tradition but with her own distinctive, breezy style, Elizabeth Mitchell offers a fresh, lively folk album that'll please little ones and their music-loving caregivers alike. As on her collaborative disc with
Lisa Loeb,
Catch the Moon, You Are My Little Bird focuses on the winsome sound of Mitchell's voice, backed by acoustic instruments, hand percussion, and harmonies from friends and family including her husband Dan Littleton and young daughter Storey Littleton. True to the album's folksy nature -- and its release through the lauded Smithsonian Folkways label, home to
Pete Seeger and
Ella Jenkins -- the song list includes tunes by Seeger (the irresistibly sweet "Little Bird, Little Bird," plucked on a banjo) and
Woody Guthrie (the spare yet lively "Who's My Pretty Baby," outfitted with a Bo Diddley beat). From there, Mitchell tries her voice at non-English tunes such as the Korean "Pom Na Tu Ri (Springtime Outing)" and the Spanish "Los Pollitos (The Little Chicks)," which she says in the extensive liner notes that she discovered on a Folkways album by
Suni Paz. From there, the adventurous singer introduces young fans to
Vashti Bunyan (the singsongy "Lily Pond"), the
Velvet Underground (a gently pulsing "What Goes On"),
Gillian Welch (the blues-tinged "Winter's Come and Gone"), and
Bob Marley ("Three Little Birds," which incorporates just enough youthful voices to add color without being cloying). With its decades-spanning repertoire and homespun arrangements,
You Are My Little Bird plays like a soundtrack to a Saturday afternoon at the Mitchell-Littleton house - which, by the sound of it, would be a pretty nice place to spend the day.
