Reggae for Kids

There's a reason we grownups never outgrow our dorm-room addictions to Bob Marley and secretly dig the "Arthur" theme song, and it's because the music's easy-breezy enough to make us feel like kids again. Which is why a collection of reggae for kids works so well; the drum and bass never met a kid it couldn't convert. What's best about this 1993 CD, the first in a series later culled in a four-disc boxed set, is that it's fueled by the artists: Cool ruler Gregory Isaacs kicks things off with a dreads-swingin', Jamaica-fied "Puff the Magic Dragon" (there's a song that cried out for a reggae rendition if ever there was one), and J.C. Lodge, Yellowman, Freddie McGregor, and Bunny Wailer follow in his open-toed footsteps. "Over the Rainbow," "Joy to the World," and "This Old Man" get the steer-it-up treatment, and it seeps out to anybody over two, grandparents included. Reggae done this right is as catchy as poison ivy, with reverse properties to curb the proliferation of pouting. A blast of pure sunshine wherever, whenever it's played. --Tammy La Gorce