Ralph's World

These days there may be lots of rockers making kid-friendly records, but there’s only one Ralph Covert, an irrepressibly enthusiastic performer who rocks just as hard for kids as he does for grown-ups. Perma-grin on his face, lime-green Chuck Taylors on his feet—even at the Grammies! —his traveling circus of catchiness known as Ralph’s World is equally loved by cool-seeking parents as it is by children, fortunate to be living in an era where their music both rocks and respects their intelligence and curiosity.
Look no further than The New York Times, which said, in a front-page Arts section story, “It is possible that Mr. Covert will turn out to be [the] genre’s Elvis Presley, or at the very least its Elvis Costello.”
Covert is the ringmaster of a packed tent of creativity, even beyond Ralph’s World. He’s an award-winning playwright, has written books (including the circus-themed Sawdust and Spangles), and music for adult theatrical dramas and children's musicals. He also still plays gigs with his grown-up rock outfit, The Bad Examples — to say nothing of the Ralph’s World videos that put his winning personality into family rooms worldwide. Given all that, it’s no wonder that Disney sought out the indefatigable performer for its Disney Sound label, which is releasing ‘The Rhyming Circus,’ Ralph’s World’s latest.
While it may easy to take the current enlightened state of children’s music for granted, the current landscape owes a lot to performers like Covert, who began putting music the entire family could embrace on the road and on record more than seven years ago. “When I was asked to make a kids record, I said I’d be interested—instead—in making a great record that kids like,” he recalls.
Ralph’s World brings grown-up values of resonant songcraft (with wry, inventive wordplay), musical sophistication and energetic, rock ’n’ roll performances to children’s music. It’s an approach that’s gotten the attention of the Recording Academy, which nominated 2005’s Green Gorilla, Monster & Me for a Grammy.
When Covert’s band, Chicago’s indie-rock heroes The Bad Examples, took off, the rocker said he felt like “the kid who ran off and joined the circus”—albeit a circus that featured occasional stage-diving and appealed heavily to college kids. But that was only the first act. As a ringmaster might say, the next performance landed Ralph in the center ring, with a thousand-watt spotlight on his well- traveled Stratocaster.
“My philosophy has always been, from the Bad Examples days onward, that there’s no such thing as a ‘good record,’ only ‘great records,’” Covert observes. “Every ‘good record’ is ultimately a forgettable record. My goal has always been
not to settle for good records, but to make great records that people make part of the fabric of their lives.”
The Rhyming Circus may well be the greatest he’s ever turned out. Given that the Bad Examples’ Bad Is Beautiful was named by Goldmine magazine as one of the “50 essential American power-pop albums of all-time,” that’s a bold statement. But kid-friendly or not, the jangly pop of “Gotta Be Good” could easily fit into an adventurous mainstream radio playlist.
In fact, that’s one of the secrets of Ralph’s World’s success. As Covert puts it, he aims to remove “vicarious enjoyment” to let his entire audience own the experience. “There are not that many experiences that parents and children can have together where one isn’t vicariously participating in something the other is enjoying,” he points out. “The parents often love the Ralph’s World music and are as into it as the kids are. And that creates a memorable experience for everyone.”
“It's so nice to have an album my kids and I agree on,” says Josh Jackson, editor in chief of Paste magazine. “‘Dance Around,’ [from 2005’s Green Gorilla, Monster & Me] was about the catchiest song from any genre that year.”
Whether it’s the Beatlesque bounce of “Edward The Tap Dancing Elephant,” the Mellotron-embellished ’60s swirl of “King of The Alphabet,” or the Brian Setzer- like guitar swing of “Bad Bug Ball,” this is an endlessly entertaining album, musically. (As Time magazine noted, “Ralph’s World runs through genres like a kid hitting every ride at a theme park.”) At the same, kids will relate to having a favorite shirt, the enjoyment of a birthday party, and even the re-imagining of Johnny Cash in “Folsom Daycare Blues.”
Live, the vibe is exuberant rock ’n’ roll, with a substantial chunk of the audience jumping onstage at show’s end to join the band. “I don’t work off a set list because I enjoy having that ability to intuitively know where the show needs to go next and making the call on the spur of the moment.” Covert says. “We’ve always been into feeding off what happens in the audience and to keep then engaged and take the show to that next level. That was a skill that I honed with the Bad Examples that’s been very helpful with the Ralph’s World stuff.”
Ralph’s World has its origins in a songwriting class Covert taught at Chicago’s Old Town School Of Folk Music, around the same time his daughter Fiona was born. He was offered a chance to teach “Wiggleworms” toddler music classes and accepted, on the condition that he do it his way—no musical compromises save for the lyrics and with the same energy and style for which he was already known. “That was a perfect situation for me as a performer and writer,” he recalls. “In seconds you’d know if your audience loved the song.”
At the same time a respected indie label noticed what Covert was doing and offered to put out and promote Ralph’s World albums while Ralph hit the road with his crew of longtime bandmates. Hundreds of shows later, Ralph’s strat rockin’, long hair flyin’ infectious joy was noticed by Disney Sound, which released a compilation of Ralph’s greatest moments from his indie releases (Welcome To Ralph’s World) and prepared the way for The Rhyming Circus where a cow takes the singing spotlight as bugs, elephants, royalty and inanimate objects occupy the center ring.
With The Rhyming Circus just released in May 2008, Ralph’s World now has eight CDs available (with previous outings Ralph’s World, At the Bottom of the Sea, Happy Lemons, Peggy’s Pie Parlor, The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro, the Grammy-nominated Green Gorilla, Monster & Me and the CD/DVD Welcome To Ralph’s World) and the award-winning Say Hello DVD (Parenting magazine's 2003 Video of the Year).
Covert has also appeared on CBS’ Early Show, NPR’s All Things Considered, ABC’s World News Tonight, earned raves from Time, Newsweek and People, headlined a coast-to-coast tour of House of Blues venues (unprecedented for a kids artist) and sold out shows at Chicago’s Ravinia festival (8,000+ capacity) for the past three years running.
“Ralph’s World feels like an extension of all the things I was already doing,” Covert says. “Although it’s a direction I hadn’t expected.”
But Covert is really too modest—with a revolution in children’s music underway, it’s not a “direction,” it’s a movement, with Ralph and his “rhyming circus” merrily leading the charge. Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages are invited to come join in the fun.