Aging musicians find new careers after parenthood
By Chrissie Dickinson
January 23, 2004

So what happens when aging punk musicians and parenthood collide? Witness the career rebirth of one Jason Ringenberg.

Longtime fans will remember the lead singer of Jason & the Scorchers as a cowboy-hatted wildman. A whirling dervish literally given to swinging from the rafters of punk clubs, Ringenberg cut quite a figure as the yelping frontman of the seminal ' 80s cowpunk band.

Fast forward two decades, and 45-year-old Ringenberg has just cut his first children's record under the homespun persona "Farmer Jason." Released on Yep Roc Records, "A Day at the Farm with Farmer Jason" is already garnering rave reviews for its blend of folksy humor and red-hot country guitar-picking.

Farmer Jason performs at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Sunday. The father of three daughters, ages 3 to 13, Ringenberg lives with his wife and kids on a farm outside Nashville.

Knows from experience

"I know, myself having children, that adults are going to have to listen to it several thousand times," he says, laughing, calling from a kiddie tour stop in Michigan. "I hoped to make it so adults could get something out of the record, too. We tried to make a record that had some cool picking and some little insider jokes."

Farmer Jason is a small, homegrown contender in the kids' music market. According to Billboard, which runs the Top Kid Audio chart, Walt Disney came in at No. 1 for top kid audio labels in 2003 with 38 charting titles.

While the kids' record market tends to be dominated by major players, Ringenberg is just the latest alternative musician to release an independent children's record to an appreciative audience. Several other rockers also have produced alternatives to the insufferable songs of Barney.

"My platform when I run for president is: a ukulele in every house," says Dan Zanes, 42, a punk musician who has carved out a thriving second career as a children's performer. Zanes recently released his fourth children's record, "House Party," on his own Festival Five record label.

In the 1980s, Zanes logged time as a member of the critically touted alternative-rock outfit the Del Fuegos. When the band fizzled in 1989, Zanes spent a few years reassessing what he wanted to do with music.

The birth of his daughter, Anna, now 9, sent him in search of kids' records that he could also enjoy as a parent. "Not knowing anything about the musical landscape for young people, I went into the record store expecting I would find updated versions of Pete Seeger and Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, things I'd grown up with, handmade folk music," he says. "I didn't find anything that fit the bill."

"I'm not really someone that spends a lot of time talking about how horrible the children's music world is, because I really don't believe that," says the soft-spoken Zanes. "But in the mainstream, it's extremely corporate, and that's not my bag at all. But once you do a little bit of digging, you find a lot of great things."

Zanes' new career was born out of informal, living room jam sessions with neighborhood parents. His warm, rootsy releases feature guest cameos from musician pals such as Sheryl Crow and Suzanne Vega. Zanes says his main goal is to capture an organic immediacy that he feels is lacking in many mainstream children's releases.

Zanes has posted respectable figures for someone who runs an indie label out of his Brooklyn home. His first children's release has now sold 30,000 copies. "That's a lot for recording it in my basement and running the office from my top floor," he says.

Alternative measures

Chicago-based insurgent country label Bloodshot Records jumped into the kiddie fray with the 2002 release "The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs For Bumpy Wagon Rides," an independent kid's compilation that features performances by such alternative luminaries as Rosie Flores, Kelly Hogan, Alejandro Escovedo and Robbie Fulks.

"I don't want to expose [my son] to Barney-type music, because I don't want to have to listen to that," laughs Nan Warshaw, co-owner of Bloodshot and the mother of 2-year-old Finn.

Chicago-based Jon Langford and his band the Waco Brothers contributed a cut to the Bloodshot release. Although Langford has only performed specifically for children a few times, as the father of two boys -- ages 6 and 20 months -- he's no stranger to the trauma of shopping for decent children's music.

Even though they've been toughened by their days in the punk trenches, some children's performers readily admit toddlers can be a rough crowd.

"If you lose a room full of kids' attention, you have real trouble," laughs Ringenberg.

There are plenty of benefits for trading in the moshpit for a pint-size audience. "The dancing is a lot better," Zanes says. "We can have a full throttle dance party before lunchtime. That's cool."

For former punks gone the kiddie route, sometimes there's also great satisfaction in watching their music careers come full circle.

"I had the great pleasure the other night of doing a children's show in Michigan," says Ringenberg. "A guy came up and he had his grandson with him. He also had a Jason & the Scorchers `Lost and Found' LP from 1985. So, he had me sign that, then he bought a `Farmer Jason' CD for his grandson, and I signed that for his grandson."