is hardly a garden-variety folksinger. With his easy, flexible baritone he sounds a bit like , but the relaxed demeanor of his delivery belies the careful research he puts into the songs he sings, and he sings a lot of songs (he is rumored to know well over 5,000 of them), so it's a wonder he has time for anything else. A respected marine biologist and a director of the Scripps Oceanographic Institution, brings a kind of scientific exactness to the songs he performs, and what sounds offhand in his performances is actually carefully considered. Even at that, still manages to sound incredibly casual and relaxed on this charming set of 20 songs intended for children that was originally released in 1961 by 's . Unhurried, unruffled, playful, and often elegant, the album is nigh near perfect, easy and calm as a cloudless summer day. Among the highlights from what is a pretty seamless 38-minute song suite is an example of a cumulative song (in which each chorus expands to circle back through all the earlier choruses), the nonsense song (set to the melody of ), a calm take on 's minstrel tune a smooth and elegantly sung the beautiful (which began life as an Irish marching song done on bagpipes, then became a popular fiddle reel, and finally a bedtime ), and which fills with delightfully accurate sounding frog calls. never over-sings, and he lets the songs take center stage and shine, wisely understanding that aren't about the singer, they're about the song. ~ Steve Leggett