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For many rockers, the key to career longevity lies in playing to ever-younger crowds. But for Park Slope mom Suzi Shelton, whose folk-inflected debut, Simply Suzi (2005), introduced her to a generation of New York tots, watching her audience grow up is perfectly natural. On her second album, No Ordinary Day, the former preschool teacher and mother of two leaves her younger, gentler tunes behind to make way for a more sophisticated sound: up-tempo rhythms, electronic flourishes and narrative-driven lyrics. “Mama’s House...Daddy’s House,” for instance, features a Brooklyn child of separated parents who loves Dizzy’s Diner. Time Out Kids recently sat down with Shelton to talk about what inspires her.
How has your sound changed since the first album?
My style is aging up! Toddlers enjoy songs that they can learn easily and sing along to. Folk music is a great vehicle for that, and I tried to focus on a younger audience for my first album. On the new CD, the more upbeat, rocking songs allow for older kids like my nine-year-old, Sebastian, to feel that it’s still cool to go to a kids’ concert. They also get the grown-ups involved by asking the audience to shout out and play air band.
Has the kid-music scene itself evolved in recent years?
Locally, it’s grown immensely, and it’s especially booming in Brooklyn. I feel as if New York is a forerunner in “kindie rock.” Not all places in the country are as familiar with the phenomenon where you go to a bar on a Sunday afternoon with your kids and hear catchy music that has safe lyrics for both of you to enjoy.
There are so many wonderful and diverse bands out there that it’s a bit daunting to me at times. It makes me strive for high standards for my music, surely, but it also keeps me focused on my own style. People like how they feel at my shows, and that’s what I want to maintain. I want people to leave humming my songs and feeling as if they’ve had a big group hug.
We hear that your family pitches in with cowriting songs.
My husband considers himself the idea man. He constantly throws out ideas for songs and then expects me to write them. However, my biggest inspiration is day-to-day life. Sebastian helps me with some of the lyrics and has cowritten a song or two. Some were written during bath time.
No Ordinary Day is available as of Tue 5.
