BCM’s Favorite Live Performances of 2009
I’m happy to report that we have been awarded one of Boston Children’s Music’s First Annual Favorite Live Performance of 2009! We’re really excited about this honor and thrilled to be in the company of such great musicians!
Here’s what Amber Bobnar of Boston Children’s Music, had to say:
Debbie & Friends is one of our favorite bands and we love to see them perform live. Debbie does such a wonderful job of talking to the kids and getting them to really feel like they are an important part of the show. Debbie’s shows have a very inclusive feel to them and they can be a great way to introduce your kids, especially little kids, to full-band live music.
Debbie’s band is just phenomenal, but I have to say that Mike really helps make the show. He is Debbie’s backup singer and all-around silly guy. The kids love him. He responds to all the stories and games and is just so much fun to watch. And I love his singing on the new song, “So So Happy.” Download your copy of “So So Happy” here.
Filed under Awards, Children's Music, Concerts, Debbie and Friends, News | Comment (0)Meet the Band!
The Debbie and Friends’ band has been making music together for nearly two years. In that time, we’ve enjoyed a special connection with our wonderful fan families who come out to see us play. I thought it would be fun to tell you all a little bit about each band member and unveil their new cartoon personas which will be on the new CD (coming soon)!
Mike Carrera is the producer and my partner with “Debbie and Friends.” He’s an incredible musician, can play just about any instrument, and has the most beautiful singing voice I’ve ever heard. His favorite color is blue, favorite food: tacos, and his favorite band is Head East. Mike’s favorite thing to do is play music. For Mike, the best part of D&F is “Seeing how much the audience really gets into the music and enjoys themselves!” Those of you who have been to a D&F show know that Mike is a lot of fun and a VERY good sport!
Rory McKenzie is our awesome bass player. Rory and I have been friends for more than 20 years! We met when I was a music teacher in Gloucester, MA when his son (my first grader) told me his dad’s band needed a keyboard player. We’ve been dear friends and musical collaborators ever since! Rory has been playing the bass for (gulp) 40 years. His favorite band is the Beatles, favorite color, midnight blue, and favorite food, “See food!” Rory loves playing music with his friends, which is the best thing about playing D&F shows for him.
Eric Saulnier is our most-excellent guitar player. He’s been playing guitar since he was five-years old and it’s his favorite thing to do. Bob Dylan is his all-time favorite band and he likes the color red. Eric’s favorite food is Hot Dogs with Mac and Cheese (and I’ve seen him eat it at the World Cafe Live kid’s buffet!) In addition to guitar, Eric is often doing double-duty as our sound engineer for D&F shows, making sure the sound is just right for our young audiences. For Eric, the audience is best thing about playing D&F shows! I know the audience enjoys Eric, too!
Bill D’Agostino is our amazing drummer. He can play anything and he does it all so well! Bill’s been playing the drums for 30 years, and like Eric, it is his favorite thing to do! He is solid as a rock and is so much fun to play with! James Taylor is Bill’s all-time favorite band, and he likes the color blue. His favorite food is pasta. For Bill, getting to play drums with his friends and making kids laugh are the best parts of playing D&F shows! I know the band feels the same way about playing music with Bill!
That’s the band! We have lots of other friends who play with us from time to time too, such as Jeff Muzerolle, Susan Gedutis Lindsay, Liz Gould, Adam Olenn, Brian O’Neill, and many others. We always have a great time making music with the families that come to our shows.
Have you been to a D&F show? Does anyone in your family have any questions for our band members? Please post your comments and questions and we’ll get right back to you!
Filed under Children's Music, Concerts, Debbie and Friends, Music | Comment (0)Berklee’s New Kids/Family Concert Series
Berklee College of Music is kicking off a brand new a Kids/Family Concert Series beginning this Saturday, January 9th with Debbie and Friends!
The shows will be held in Berklee’s newest performance venue, The Red Room at Cafe 939 located at 939 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for kids, and can be purchased online via Ticketmaster or by calling 1-800-745-3000.
Buy 10:00am show tickets here.
Buy 11:30am show tickets here.
Everybody goes home with Debbie and Friends’ tattoos and a free new song download card!
In honor of this new series, the Cactus Club is offering 20% off lunch entrees for anyone with a Debbie and Friends’ concert ticket! The Cactus Club is in the same building as Cafe 939, so you won’t even have to put on your coats to go to lunch!
The band and I hope to see you on Saturday!
- Debbie
Debbie and Friends
Win 4 Tickets to D&F Shows!
Our good friends at Boston Children’s Music are offering 4 tickets to two different Boston-area Debbie and Friends’ concerts shows.
To enter, all you have to do is visit the Boston Children’s Music web site and post a comment. Here’s the link.
Good luck!
Filed under Children's Music, Concerts, Debbie and Friends, Family Activities, Music | Comment (0)
Build A Bear (Cartoon that is!)
As I mentioned in our last movie announcement, all of the Debbie and Friends animated cartoons are based on songs from our CD, Story Songs and Sing Alongs. The next animated cartoon in development is based on the “Golidlocks and the Three Bears song.”
Goldilocks by DebbieandFriends
Here’s the process. Once we know which song we want to develop into a music cartoon, we ask our good friend Rob Heath at Barkley Studios to help us by creating some fun characters for the cartoon.
Character design.
Then, we create scenes based on the lyrics of the song.
Golidlocks doing what she does!
And finally, we develop a storyboard movie… it’s like a “rough version” of what the animation will be like, set to music. Here’s our storyboard movie/rough version of the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” animated music video.
After that, our amazing animators at Planet Sunday do their thing and create the real animated feature. The “real thing” will be ready by the end of October. Stay tuned!!! Until then, please be sure to check out the other Debbie and Friends cartoons and performance videos on our YouTube Channel!
Filed under Concerts, Debbie and Friends, Family Activities, Videos | Comment (0)Booking Debbie and Friends
Debbie and Friends’ booking company.
Debbie and Friends is now being represented by Hiccup Productions!
To book a Debbie and Friends show in your area, please contact the great folks at Hiccup!
Jeni Cosgrove
Hiccup Productions, Inc.
jeni@hiccupbooking.com
913-219-4815
Debbie and Friends Interview
The following is a Debbie and Friends interview from a wonderful new Boston-based children’s music blog, Boston Children’s Music by Amber Bobnar. Anyone interested in learning about children’s music artists and related information should check it out. In addition, there are weekly updates on all of the Boston-area shows. Amber is providing a wonderful service for families. I am so pleased to have Debbie and Friends included!
Interview with Debbie Cavalier of Debbie and Friends
We took our son, Ivan, to see a wonderful Debbie and Friends performance at the Regent Theatre in Arlington on Saturday, April 11th.
Meeting Debbie after a Debbie and Friends concert.
A live Debbie and Friends show is a treat for the entire family. The band plays a variety of styles, from straight-ahead pop, to country, to rock, to reggae.
Kids are part of the show as the audience becomes the Big Bad Wolf and blows the house down, fixes Rosie’s wrong rhymes, and tests their skills with the Simon Sez Song. Like everyone’s favorite teacher, Debbie connects with her audience and respects kids for the people they are, and her warmth is sincere and her radiance downright contagious.
Kids love her energy, her sunshine, and the interesting array of musicians she brings to each show, including keyboard, all sorts of hand percussion, energetic and sometimes zany backing vocalists, saxophones, banjo, fiddle, flute, whistles—you name it.
We had a great time singing along with all our favorite tunes from Story Songs and Sing Alongs
You can learn more about Debbie’s shows and CDs by visiting her website: www.DebbieAndFriends.net.
Boston Children’s Music: I hear you’re working on a new CD? Can you tell us about it?
Debbie Cavalier: We’re very excited about it! We’ve found that the whole concept of story songs really resonates with families and children so we’re going to keep that theme going. As was the case with Story Songs and Sing Alongs, this CD will contain songs representing diverse styles and instrumentation. There will be some guest artists on there as well!
The new CD will probably be called More Story Songs and Sing Alongs and one of the songs that we’re doing is “The Little Engine that Could.” We’re very excited about that one.
There are also a couple of songs that we do in the live shows like “Simon Sez” and “Rosie Wrong Rhyme,” that will be on the new CD. “Rosie Wrong Rhyme” is actually an old Shari Lewis tune. It’s the only one I’m putting on the CD that isn’t original. I had the opportunity to work with her back in the ’90s on songbooks and she really inspired me so I wanted to include a song of hers.
BCM: Do you have a release date?
Probably late Fall. We’re doing some recording next month for the first five songs.
I’m so lucky being at Berklee College of Music with all the wonderful musicians there contributing to our CD. We had forty-five musicians on the last CD, most of them from Berklee. It was great being able to just pull in this horn player, or that banjo player at a moment’s notice.
BCM: Speaking of Berklee, I know you are the Dean of Continuing Education there. Can you talk a little about what you do?
DC: Sure. The continuing education division provides Berklee curriculum and music education opportunities to musicians all over the world who can’t enroll in a full-time degree program at the college.
We run two main activities: Berklee Press, which publishes books and DVDs based on Berklee’s curriculum, authored by Berklee faculty; and Berkleemusic.com, Berklee’s online extension school that offers fully accredited semester-long online courses taught by Berklee faculty. It’s really a wonderful thing. A lot of people say, “How can you teach music online?” but it’s amazingly effective. We have songwriting, music business, guitar, production, arranging, orchestration courses, and much more available online.
Berkleemusic is the largest online music college in the world and has been awarded the “Best Online Course Award” by the Continuing Education Association for five years running.
Eric Saulnier on Guitar; Photo by Samantha Broadhurst.
BCM: How does being at Berklee benefit your band? How many band members are from Berklee?
DC: Mike Carrera, my producer, and Bill D’Agostino, our drummer, are both Berklee staff; Sue Lindsay used to work there, but now is working independently; and almost everybody playing on the CD is from Berklee.
I also have some incredible musicians playing live with Debbie and Friends who are not part of Berklee, including Rory McKenzie on bass, Liz Gould on percussion, Brian O’Neill on percussion, and Eric (Saulnier) Salt on guitar. Sometimes we have Adam Olenn on bass and Jeff Muzerolle on Drums (both Berklee staff). Each one of our band members bring so much energy and wonderful musicianship to our shows!
Everyone in the band really enjoys playing Debbie and Friends shows. It’s so refreshing for them to play for children. When you play for an adult crowd, you’re often just background music and people are talking over you, but when you perform for kids, they are with you and part of the show every second.
BCM: How about the kids’ voices on your first CD? There are a lot of kids talking, singing, cheering—who are they?
DC: We live in Watertown and we just happen to live on a street with a dozen kids who were all excited to be part of the CD. So, I just paraded everybody through my home studio to record a lot of the speaking and singing parts. That was a lot of fun.
My niece and nephews are on the CD as well. I really started this whole project because of my nephew Will. He told me the story of the Three Little Pigs one day with such enthusiasm that it sounded like sections of a song. It occurred to me that the Three Little Pigs story would make a great song, and it just grew from there. I began writing story songs and other music for children and have never looked back. The fact that Debbie and Friends started with my nephew Will makes it extra special to me. (And, whenever we play shows in Boston or Philadelphia, Will comes up on stage with his brother Ronnie and sister Rebecca to join us on a few songs. They and their brother Teddy are a constant source of inspiration for me!)
The main child vocalists that are on the CD are Amber and Aubrielle. They are the great nieces of Darcel Wilson (Berklee voice faculty who is featured on Love is a Family
Simon Sez Hand Up!; Photo by Samantha Broadhurst.
BCM: Live performances are fun, but I imagine performing in a studio and putting together a CD is a lot of fun, too. Which do you prefer?
DC: My number one favorite thing to do is perform and interact with the kids and their families because I feel like we are all doing the show together. Every single song has something for them to do. I was a classroom music teacher for years and I think that as my career progressed and all these opportunities came my way I was pulled further and further away from interacting with children. I really love performing and interacting with kids‚ whether it’s with five or five hundred!
However, recording and working with Mike, my producer, is incredible because he really gets the whole children’s music thing and he’s so creative. We started working together on Debbie and Friends by accident, really. I invited him over to help me with my home studio a few years ago. While he was there, I played Three Pigs and a Wolf
The creative process with him is really magical. I start with a song and he just takes it to a whole new level.
BCM: And often the songs on the CD end up being very different than the songs played live.
DC: Yes. When we first recorded the songs I hadn’t played them in a live setting at all. They’ve grown. I almost wish that we could record them now. I heard Faith Hill say once, that when you play a song live people expect you to do the CD version, but the songs continue to grow and change. It’s true. So I’m glad we didn’t record Rosie or Simon Sez so we could play around with them first.
BCM: You have a wonderful website, a great blog, and are active on facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Can you talk a little bit about how you use the internet?
DC: I really enjoy leveraging all of the communication tools of the Web to stay connected with the fan families of Debbie and Friends. I’m blessed to work with the most amazing marketing and technology folks at Berklee who have advised me on Debbie and Friends’ Web presence along the way. The Vice President in charge of BerkleeMusic.com, Dave Kusek, wrote a book entitled The Future of Music and the Music Business
I am also really lucky to have the opportunity to work with Barkley Studios’ Robert Heath. He designed my Debbie and Friends logo (the Deb Head), built my web site and my blog, and created templates for me to work in to keep my web site content fresh and current. He always makes sure the branding is consistent and our look and feel is fun for kids.
My mentor in this is children’s music marketing guru Regina Kelland. She has advised me on the marketing side and has opened so many doors for Debbie and Friends.
BCM: Children’s music really seems to be very popular right now, why do you think that is? Why do so many parents want to share music with their kids and find music that isn’t “annoying” to adult ears?
DC: I believe that over the course of the past ten to fifteen years, parents have been more proactive in making music part of their children’s daily lives. Parents are finding ways to fill the void in schools where budget cuts have eliminated arts-related programs.
In addition, there is a tremendous amount of research readily available on music and the brain, and the important role the arts play in developing the “whole child.” These are among the factors that are driving parents to give their kids a musical experience, thereby populating children’s music concerts, music classes such as Kindermusik, and driving children’s music CD sales.
Regarding “annoying” music, I think all genres have been called that by one person or another. I think Parents are becoming more aware that sharing quality, age-appropriate music with their children is a special experience that resonates with the core of their being.
BCM: What advice would you have for someone looking to break in to the children’s music field?
DC: Go for it! But, only do it if you absolutely love children’s music and interacting with kids and family audiences. Children are the most discerning audience of all. If you are not genuine, they will know right away.
To break in, start performing locally and grow regionally, then nationally. Play at schools, libraries, festivals, and work towards theater shows. Establish a connection with your fan families from the start and nurture those relationships. Encourage families to sign up for your email list at each performance. Email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch. Make your web site a fun, dynamic destination and a place they want to frequent and explore together. Keep your concerts interactive and filled with active participatory experiences for the children and parents. Produce music that both parents and kids will enjoy.
BCM:
Meeting with the fans; Photo by Keith Pierce.
You say it’s important to connect with your fans. How do you do that?
DC: I always try to make sure that I have a presence before and after the shows. I really like to meet the families who come to the shows. I love to hear anything they want to share, like a favorite song, and then I like to use that in the show to let them know how important they are in all of this.
They also give me wonderful ideas and remind me that it’s time for another CD! A little boy came up to me after our last show and said, “When are you coming out with another CD?‚” and I said, “Oh, very soon, we’re working on it, I think in the Fall,” and he just made a disappointed sigh. It was so adorable and great to get that kind of feedback and to know that they want more Debbie and Friends music now!
The internet is also a great way to connect. I have the email newsletter, and I always include a way for families to can email me directly. I try to encourage that kind of dialogue with parents.
Find a Family Concert Near You ♫
Great Sites for Family-Friendly Concerts Near Home
Debbie and Friends in Concert
Often, at a Debbie and Friends concert, parents will ask me where they can find information about family-friendly concert in the area. The following is my top 5 Web sites for “Debbie and Friends” show information. I hope you find these sites to be useful resources for finding quality family-friendly music. Although these web sites are “Boston-centric,” you can find similar sites throughout most major metropolitan areas in the US.
Go City Kids
This is a national service with dozens of city-specific Web sites. They send out a weekly email blast as well, highlighting some of their favorite activities for the week.
Boston Children’s Music
This is a wonderful new resource developed by parents for parents. It’s the only one I know of that is 100% devoted to music. Every time I visit the site, there is a new feature and increased functionality. It just keeps getting better and better. They are really doing things right!
Boston Family Life
Family-friendly activites in the greater Boston area.
Boston Parenthood
Parenthood.com supports and empowers moms and dads as they face today’s choices and challenges, throughout all stages of parenting. Parenthood.com connects them to the up-to-date and relevant information, resources, community, products and services they need to raise healthy, happy children. The calendar sections is a great resource for local concerts.
Boston Central
Highlights fun activities for families in the Greater Boston and New England Area.
500 Voices Strong!
The Debbie and Friends Band!
Thanks to everyone (nearly 500 kids and parents singing along with us!) who came out to join us on Feb. 21 at the Tilden Center for the Arts at Cape Cod Community College! What a wonderful time the band and I had making music with all of you!
What an honor it was to be the featured performers for the 17th Annual Cape-wide Family Library Event!
Thank you to Janet Burke, Mashpee Library, for inviting us to perform and to Stu Parsons, Sandwich Library, for that glowing introduction! Thanks to Brian Rice for the fantastic job on the sound and lights!
To see more pictures from our fun time together, click “here” above.
We’ve got some great shows scheduled for March in the Greater Boston area. For information about our upcoming shows, click here.
I hope to see you soon!
-Debbie
Debbie and Friends’ Tattoos!
Our amazing guitar player, Eric Saulnier, sporting his D&F tattoo on his arm!
I’m happy to report, that by popular demand, we now have Debbie and Friends’ Tattoos for all of you!
We will be giving them out at our upcoming shows this spring, but, if you have to have yours now… email me with your name and mailing address and I’ll put some in the mail for you and your kids! Send your request to
Debbie@debbieandfriends.net
We hope to see you at one of our upcoming shows soon!
Your friend,
Debbie
