CD Review

By Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, School Library Journal, June 2003

Steve Blunt's first album is a 14-track serving of fun music for kids and adults alike. Incorporating a variety of musical styles, from jazz ("Rainy Day") to 50s-style rock 'n' roll ("Digga Digga Dinosaur") to reggae ("Macaroni and Cheese"), Blunt never wavers from his kid's-eye view of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the hilarious "The Sacrifice Fly (or How I 'Beet' Mrs. Hoffman's Clean Plate Rule)," the tale of an unfortunate insect and a plate of cafeteria food. Even Blunt's deeper messages completely avoid heavy-handedness: "(You've Been Watching) Too Much TV!," for example, includes such lyrics as "Do your eyes bug out?/Are you sleepy in the bum?," and advises how to best avoid the need for a "TV-ectomy." "Who Will Win, the Tiger or the Lion?" has a message about sharing and taking turns in a silly jungle doo-wop. Blunt gets the emotions just right in "Don't Wake Up the Baby," when a young boy, sick of his new baby sister always needing sleep, overhears his mother telling her, "Don't wake up your brother!" This is an upbeat, kid-friendly album for the whole family, and Steve Blunt is an artist to watch.

Writing little songs for BIG imaginations: Nashua singer-songwriter Steve Blunt is a kid favorite

By John Collins, 1590 Broadcaster, January 2, 2003

He is not nearly as big or as purple as Barney.

He is not as famous as Elmo.

And he does not have the crocodile cool Aussie accent of The Wiggles.

What singer, songwriter and former middle school English teacher Steve Blunt of Nashua does have, however, is a love for writing and performing original, often humorous children's music, and a proven ability to create young and old fans one library, school, birthday party or store appearance at a time.

"A lot of the songs that even young kids listen to now Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, N Sync they're OK songs, and I don't worry that it's going to warp them," said Blunt after his Dec. 27 performance at the Nashua Public Library. "I just think when second- and third-graders are listening to those songs there's a lot better music for kids that their parents can feel good about. It makes me more committed to what I do."

While the Ohio-born Blunt, 38, cites the Beatles and several other children's musicians (Amy Conley of Milford among them) as sources of major inspiration, his biggest musical influence was most likely the woman who brought him home from the hospital on Feb. 9, 1964 the same night that the Fab Four made their first live appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, according to Blunt.

"I grew up with my mom playing the piano after supper and sometimes we'd just listen, or sing along," he said. "I loved the Beatles as a teenager and listened to more pop music as I grew older. I played baritone horn in my high school band (in St. Charles, Ill). Then I started to play the guitar. After college I became a teacher. I'd bring my guitar to class and make up little songs for my middle school English class. And that's how I realized that I'm a children's musician. I like writing songs and sharing music specifically for kids."

When his wife, Sheila, earned a job promotion and transfer to Hanscom Air Force Base where she now works, the Blunts moved from Illinois to Nashua with their infant daughter. Since the move to New Hampshire, Steve has worked as a full-time English teacher at Derryfield School in Manchester and as a substitute teacher at Main Dunstable Elementary School in Nashua.

Lately, Blunt said he has been spending less time teaching and more time with his family and writing and performing his music two things he likes to do. He has also been remodeling the bathroom, which is something he doesn't enjoy except when it provides inspiration.

"I'm not a handy person," said Blunt. "For me, nothing inspires songwriting creativity more than doing some other job that I don't want to do. So, if I really need to spend four hours working on the bathroom floor, and then I get an idea for a song, then I can't do the floor right now I have to finish the song first.

"But don't include that. I don't want my wife to know that's how it works."

Other places/ways in which inspiration strikes him include the shower, jogging, driving or interacting with daughter Mary, now 7, Blunt's favorite test audience of one. A few years ago, Steve was cradling his sleeping daughter in his arms and watching a high flying kite out the window, when he wondered how much wind force it would take to carry a child up with it. His pondering became a song, "Hang On, Henry!" which Blunt made the title track of his first 15-song CD, which was released in October.

"It's the song of mine that kids seem to respond to the most," said Blunt, whose songs are often featured on the Boston children's radio program The Playground (on WERS, 88.9 FM, 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday). "It's about my little brother, Henry, hangin' on to a kite when a burst of wind came, which takes him into the air and flies him far away. It's a fun song (with a happy ending)."

Other fun "little songs for big imaginations" on Blunt's CD include: "Don't Wake Up the Baby," which cleverly empathizes with what every toddler feels when forced to cope with the starlet treatment that's usually given to the new arrival in the family; and "Sacrifice Fly," which at least one reporter mistakenly guessed to be about baseball.

"It's a song about this fly in a school cafeteria that landed on my plate and started to eat the food I didn't want to eat, which was the beets," said Blunt with a smile. "And then the fly died on my beets. I showed my teacher and she said I didn't have to eat them."

He didn't have to eat his beets until the next day, according to the song the longest track on the CD at 4:49.

"The CD came out really well," said Blunt, heaping praise on the friends who helped him produce the album at Rocking Horse Studios in Manchester. "One parent told me they get sick of some children's music that their kids listen to, but they liked my CD."

What Blunt would like most is to continue doing more of what he's doing now, making kids smile, dance, sing along, even roll on the floor with laughter.

"I want to do more of it," said Blunt, has added the grand opening of a new "Babies R Us" store in Salem, N.H. (on Jan. 17) to his list of upcoming appearances. "Obviously, I'd be happy if Rounder Records suddenly decided they want to pick up my CD and distribute it nationally. That would be great. But I don't expect it to happen."

Hang on, Steve!

Considering your ever-growing fan base, your big flight may have just begun.

To contact Steve Blunt, call: (603) 888-3866. Or visit: www.steveblunt.com Upcoming appearances (all free of charge) include: Saturday, Jan. 4, 10:30 a.m. at the Hollis Library; Saturday, Jan. 18, 1 p.m. at Nashua Borders Cafe; Wednesday, Feb. 26, 11 a.m. at the Keys to Learning store in Nashua.

Express yourself by singing about macaroni & cheese

By Lisa Parsons, HippoPress Manchester, November 7, 2002

What reading material is in your bathroom?

Nashua resident Steve Blunt keeps a rhyming dictionary and an 800-page volume of New England folklore on top of his toilet. He might need them for writing song verses like this: "Well, teacher, how can you expect me to finish my lunch?/I got a pile of cooked beets that a dog wouldn't touch."

School lunch is a well-worn topic in children's music. But you most likely have not heard a school lunch song like "The Sacrifice Fly," one of 14 songs on Blunt's new (and first-ever) CD, "Hang on, Henry!" In "The Sacrifice Fly," the child is spared a lunch of beets by the sudden appearance (and demise) of a hungry fly.

The songs on "Hang On, Henry!" are heartfelt, funny and engaging. After a few listens, I can't help but think of nationally acclaimed loved-by-kids-and-grownups Massachusetts songwriter Bill Harley. Blunt appreciates the comparison, calling Harley "the Elvis of smart, funny children's music."

At a recent performance at Leach Library in Londonderry, Blunt had kids in stitches. His baritone deadpan of "Trick or treat, smell my feet" had one boy rolling on the floor laughing. The parents liked it when he sang about dressing up as the scariest creature of all, the one that comes out at midnight... the Crying Baby.

With the CD, he's hoping to reach a wider audience.

From Beatles to Beowulf

Blunt is serious, thoughtful, and unfailingly polite. He doesn't laugh or joke much. He's earnest about the importance of family and the people who worked with him on the CD (like Otis Ball of Otis Ball and the Chains, a bassist named Killer, and sound engineers at Manchester's Rocking Horse Studio).

"I'm 38, born in February, 1964," he said. "The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show the night I came home from the hospital. Family legend has it that I watched intently, which may be true, because I became the biggest Beatles freak around when everybody else was listening to Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Journey."

When Blunt was in eighth grade, his family moved to the Chicago suburbs from Ohio.

"It was tricky moving and making friends at that age, " he said. He spent hours alone listening to The Beatles and studying their lyrics. "That's when I really fell in love with recorded music and started paying attention to the words. From there, it wasn't long before I had my own guitar and was making up my own little songs."

His formal education in music consists mainly of playing baritone horn in his school band, where he learned to read music - a skill he uses very little. The only guitar lessons he's ever had were from the Rev. Bill Lawser, who led a church youth group in Illinois.

In second grade, young Steve Blunt wrote a verse called "Where the Monsters Are," derived from his favorite children's book (still), "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

In high school, when the English homework was to analyze "Beowulf," he asked the teacher if he could write a song about it. He did his best thinking that way.

At age 5, he had wanted to be a lion tamer; at age 10, a pro football player, and by 15, his aim was to become an English teacher, which he did. When he moved to New Hampshire to be with family he took a job teaching English at the Derryfield School, a private middle and high school in Manchester.

Finding songs everywhere

But there was always music and there was always writing. He works on his songs in the shower and practices them on his daughter at breakfast.

"She's 3 years old and her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. We're driving in a car pointing at everything we can see that is the same color as macaroni and cheese. Pretty soon we start singing, and the song ('Macaroni & Cheese') writes itself in about an hour," he said.

Blunt wrote "Hang On, Henry" - about a boy swept away on a kite - when his daughter was an infant.

"I'm sitting in the recliner while she dozes peacefully in the space between my hand and the inside of my elbow. Staring vacantly out the window, I notice a kite is being flown way up in the air. I wonder how much force would be required to lift my infant daughter up, up and away," he said. "The song 'Hang On, Henry' is conceived but isn't finished 'til six months later when I'm jogging in some woods before an afternoon teachers' meeting."

Last year he quit his Derryfield School position so he could devote time to his family and making music. Now, he's a substitute music teacher at a Nashua elementary school and he loves it. If he ever returns to regular teaching, he'd like it to be teaching music to young kids.

Where and when

Upcoming performances include:

• Santa's Breakfast show at Locals Café in Wilton on Nov. 30 from 11 a.m. to noon (free);
• Holiday Stroll at the children's stage at Nashua Public Library on Nov. 30 from 8:30 to 9 p.m. (free); and
• Jinglebell Jamboree at the American Stage Festival in Nashua on Dec. 8, a winter concert featuring several local musicians ($10 per seat, children on laps free; call Barbara Andrews at 882-2142 for details).

For information on booking a performance or buying CDs, visit www.steveblunt.com or call 888-3866. CDs are available at area Borders bookstores and other outlets.

Artist Interview: Steve Blunt

Article and photos from radio performance available on WERS website