Jim Copp's Children's Albums

March 28, 2008 3:08 PM

Jim Copp and Ed Brown "conjured a lunatic land" for children in the late 50s and early 60s using three Ampex mono recorders, a large group of instruments (music and singing by Copp), their own voices, and hundreds of pieces of recording tape spliced together. The albums were released through their own label, Playhouse Records, which is still selling them today.

A few more links about the duo (some of these are from the Playhouse site):

Henry Kaiser "On the Excellence of Jim Copp"
NPR's Morning Edition transcript (1995) and a transcript from a Fresh Air interview with the now owner of Playhouse Records, Ted Leyhe (1999)
Atlantic Monthly article (1993)
Kidzmusic artist page
Jim Copp's NYT Obit

There are also some RealPlayer sound clips and a QT video at Playhouse.

posted by sleepy pete (6 comments total)

OH MAN YESSS

Agnes Mouthwash And Friends is probably the greatest thing ever. Also the greatest thing ever: The Dog That Went To Yale.
posted by 1 at 3:13 PM on March 28, 2008

I love The Frogman.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:31 PM on March 28, 2008

Thank god you posted this. I've been wanting to post about him for a million years and I could never remember his name. I googled every combination of clues I could think of but no luck. And then the moment I saw this post I knew it was Copp.
posted by serazin at 3:39 PM on March 28, 2008

"Moooo," said Bossy Cow.
posted by oats at 5:38 PM on March 28, 2008

I had a little doggy, his name was Mister Jiggs...
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:12 PM on March 28, 2008

I got my first Jim Copp album at the age of 3. Nothing was ever the same.
posted by gregography at 9:25 AM on March 29, 2008