JB:No, but you will need to change the Pampers many times a day! (do you use that brand of diapers in the UK?)


RI:Hee-hee! Liked that one. But Jeanie, we don't use diapers at all in the UK. We use nappies. Next question––
b) If the Wicked Witch of the West melts in water... how does she ever take a bath?

JB:Witches bathe in vinegar, everyone knows that!!

RI:Crikey! Really? I didn't know that. . . okay, last one!
c) If you fart and burp at the same time, does it cause a vacuum in your tummy?

JB:We call that at burt, and it will cause euphoria if the timing is perfect!!!

RI:Hmph, that's funny. Whenever I do it all I get is thrown out of the house. But anyway, don’t worry about these questions. They’re absurd. I just like thinking about them . . .

JB:Strangely, so do I!!

RI:Jeanie, congratulations on your new CD, Mommy Knows Best! It’s filled with some terrific songs. Can you pick your own 3 personal favourites and tell us about them and how you came to write them?

JB:First of all, thank you so much for your kind words! I am flattered to the point that I hardly believe you are actually referring to my CD! If I had to pick my faves, it would be “The World is a Wonderful Place” firstly. I wrote this song, as I do many of my songs, with my two boys ages 6 & 8. (they were 4 & 6 at the time)

We were walking home from the store one evening and my youngest asked “Mommy, why are there so many things in this world that make me happy?” I replied “the world is a wonderful place”. Boom! There was the chorus! They wrote the verses by listing all of the things that were wonderful about their lives. I am so proud that none of them are materialistic. I really didn’t edit them. I also love the music on that song. I must have been listening to REM that day or something, it just makes me happy!

My 2nd place winner is “Colorblind”. I have to say that I am most proud of this song on the CD. It took me 4 months to write it. The original version was 7 minutes long. I have a lot I want to say about tolerance and really feel that children are taught racism and fear of those who are different from themselves. Left to their own devices, they are extremely accepting and curious about other walks of life. It is really up to the parents, and our society, to preserve this wonderful nature in children. I also loved writing the music to this song. I feel it, more than any other song on the CD, crosses the line between children’s music and “grown up” music. An underlying goal I have is to blur the distinction of the two genres so that all generations enjoy my music. Interestingly, the repeating riff in the song was stumbled upon while I was teaching a guitar lesson to a 10 year old student.

My 3rd favourite song is “Mommy Knows Best”. I call it the new theme song for Mothers! I wrote this at the request of my booking agent Jennifer, whose then 3 year old daughter was a bit of a handful! She asked me to give her a tool to teach her daughter to stop saying “no” to Mommy all the time! I asked her what situations her daughter was resistant to and those ended up being the items in the verses. Many Moms since have told me that they use the song to remind the children that Mommy’s in charge and they say “yes” to her, not “no”.

It’s a public service song really! Glad I could help and it’s a fun sing a long.

RI:We at Walking Oliver often find that kids really want to know how people write songs. Can you describe how you do it? Do you have a process?

JB:I have many processes.

Firstly, I will confess that some songs come from the Muse, which happens to be children in this case, and others I work at very diligently. I have a couple of places that I “store” ideas. I carry a handheld recorder with me or my cell phone at all times. If I think of an idea, I record it immediately as I find that the idea will vanish in an instant sometimes if I don’t. I have lost as many songs as I have written because I didn’t record them in time. I do this with both lyrics and music.

Sometimes the words and music come to me simultaneously, sometimes separately. I also have a folder of just incomplete song lyrics. Many are written on napkins or scraps of paper. I don’t transfer them to cleaner paper because when I sit down to finish the song, I want to remember where I was when I first got the idea so the feeling might revisit me and help me complete the song.

Some songs, like “Colorblind”, I spend months finessing and contemplating, others I write very quickly. Sometimes a song will fly out of me so fast that I can hardly write or record it fast enough and it is the complete deal. This usually happens when I’m talking to a child who is simply providing me with everything I need. “Mommy’s Got a Baby in Her Tummy” is a prime example. A little girl I had never seen before ran past me in the park one day and announced “My Mommy’s got a baby in her tummy”. She zoomed by again and said “If it’s a boy we’re going to name him Kevin”, and on and on she went. The lyrics to that song are almost verbatim the conversation that we had about her impending sibling. The melody came to me all at once and I ran home (dragging my kids behind me) and wrote the whole song in about 5 minutes. This was one instance where I did not have a recorder with me and didn’t want to forget!

My Bass player has said that sometimes I just fart out songs faster than anyone she has ever known. With that of course comes the risk that some will stink!!

RI:(And being a dog, I can really relate to that last comment!!) Hey, tell me about your band, The Jelly Beans! How’d you form the band and why did you call them jelly beans?

JB:I knew the bassist, Lisa Crowe, through my Brother-in-law, Jon Bonansinga. He has a rockabilly band called The RipTones that she is a fan of. We would often run into each other at his shows. She was in a band that sometimes shared venues with his.

We both fell from the face of the earth musically when we had our kids. When I got the itch to do children’s music, I called her first. She was happy to have an excuse to play music again and not feel guilty that it took her away from her kids because after all, it was for them!! She was friends with our drummer Theresa Drda, whom I really wanted to play with, so she called her for me and convinced her to join our curious pursuit. My husband Jay played Harmonica for us and after a year or so in that configuration we added a multi-instrumentalist to fill out more guitar parts and other instruments. Andon Davis is that person today, who also produces my CD’s.

Why the jelly beans? It seemed to roll off the tongue with Jeanie B and it was kid friendly. They had to be called something! So why not jelly beans?

RI:Why not, indeed? Another thing I was wondering about. . . there’s a song on your CD called “The Bootay Dance.” What’s a “bootay” and why is it dancing?

JB:Your “Bootay” follows you wherever you go!! It’s your bottom of course! This song was co-written by my 5 year old niece who is quite the little dancer. She actually came up with the idea of a song that featured shaking your rump. We worked up the other “moves” together and “The Bootay Dance” was born.

There quite frankly is nothing cuter than a room full of wee ones shaking their bootays to music. I have to admit that it is self indulgent on my part. I sometimes write songs that I know will amuse me while the kids are dancing to them!

RI:(Have a hard time seeing my bootay. Darn tail gets in the way!) I love some of the rhymes that you use in your songs. Do you think about rhymes and rhyming words a lot? How do you do that, and why is it so much fun to hear rhyming words?

JB:I think that hearing rhyming words makes you feel like they (the words) are in the same family. Like two siblings that belong together. It’s pleasing to the ear. It is often humorous and that makes us smile. There is more to it than just finding words that rhyme, they must rhyme and finish a thought in the same meter of music. This is where the real challenge comes as a writer.

How do I use the all important rhyming word and convey the thought in 8 beats as well? I think about rhymes all the time. My husband, who is a professional writer, taught me a great trick. I write the alphabet at the top of the page when I am working on a song. When I need a rhyming word, I’ll go through the alphabet and search for it. If I am trying to rhyme with “hit” for instance, I’ll start at “b” and do “bit, git, kit, lit, mit, nit” and so on until I find the right “fit”! Sometimes I get in a snit, but eventually, to there I will git!

RI:(And if she doesn't stop doing that, she's gonna get bit!) I hear that you do a lot of performing. Do you enjoy that? Do you ever get nervous about going on stage?

JB:I LOVE to perform. Sitting in my basement writing songs is rewarding, but what fun is it if no one ever dances with you? I just love kids and to see those little faces responding to my music is priceless. The parents too, I love to see families enjoying each other and themselves and if my music can bring them together, then that’s what it’s all about for me.

I like to write songs for both the kids and the adults and get a thrill playing for them. I used to get nervous, and sometimes I still do when it’s a big show. After I had my kids, I took a few years off from performing “adult music”. When I started up again, I took every gig I could get, no matter where, to just get over my stage fright again. Then I started playing for kids and I don’t get nervous any more. I would say excited is a more appropriate word. Nervousness comes from being unprepared, and since you can never be prepared for what kids may do, why bother getting nervous? Just do your best and learn from every performance.

I try to engage the kids and if it’s not working, I have a lot of songs in my arsenal that I can go to. My band is top notch so they always just follow along. It’s important that everyone has a positive experience at my shows. You can’t please everyone all the time though. I hope that someone at every show will connect with the music at some level. So far, so good!

RI:What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you on stage?

JB:I still blush and laugh when I think of this!

At my “Mommy Knows Best” CD release party, I made the faux pas of the decade! I always start my show with a “Hello” song that I wrote. I begin by having the kids yell out the letters as though they are following the cheerleaders at a sporting event (a little spelling exercise of sorts). I say “give me an H!” they yell “H”! Give me an “e”, they yell “e”! and so on until we have spelled “Hello”. Well, I forgot about the all important “o” this particular day and when I got to the “what’s that spell?” part of the song; silence fell over the room. Lisa, standing next to me with her bass poised in disbelief looked at me with a smirk and said “hell?” Nice way to kick off a family show, eh? I have never been allowed to forget that by both my band and my fans. I now make a big deal about the “o” at each show!

RI:That is funny!! What’s your next CD going to be about?

Well, I have more songs than will fit on a single disc, so I have to edit them down and pick a theme I suppose. I think it’s about life as a kid. I am trying to write for kids a little bit older this time around. Less preschool, more grade school age. There is a song called “I Just Want to Play” that addresses how over scheduled children are today and they really grow their best sometimes when they are allowed to just play. Another called “How Would it Make You Feel” is about thinking before you take an action that may hurt someone’s feelings or body. Also a song for the Dad’s, maybe two. I got some flack from the Dad’s after all the Mom songs on “Mommy Knows Best” so I owe them I guess! I’ve got songs about being a big sister/brother, babysitters, a fun go crazy kind of song called “Why Does it Feel so Good” and of course lullabies and love songs “Comes From My Heart” and “Everybody Needs a Kiss Goodnight” will likely end the tracks. I like to end my CD’s with lullabies. It’s cleansing for the palate and the parents always know where to find them.

RI:(Zzzzzzzzzzzz. . . . mmmm, lullabyes. Huh? What? Any mail why I was out??) Jeanie, if you had to give kids one piece of advice to help them in their everyday lives, what would it be?

JB:I would offer the same advice to grown ups as well; respect others and yourself. In the words of the great teacher Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together.” I believe respect is where that starts.

RI:Amen to that! It's been a great pleasure chatting with you Jeanie B.! Best of luck to you and your Beans. Keep that great music coming.