Mr. Jon and Friends: CD Review and Giveaway!

Hey, friends! Some of you may remember that awhile back {October 2012, in fact!} I shared with you about a really fun kids’ CD my friends Jon and Carrie made called Mr. Jon and Friends. It was full of fun, upbeat songs that kept the littles entertained without making parents want to beat their heads against a hard surface…in fact, I often found myself singing along even when LC wasn’t in the car! Since then, Jon and Carrie have expanded their own family; they now have a beautiful daughter as well as their cutie-pie son, and they also put in a lot of time and energy releasing a second children’s CD.

mrjoncd

It’s called “Get Your Move On” and based on the reactions of LC and Erin’s three boys, the music makes you want to do just that. The title song is Little Crafter’s personal favorite; he walks around the house singing it all day long. (My (Erin) boys also love this same song and I wanted to share a video clip of them getting down!)

What we also love about the cd is that it’s a great mix of original songs, as well as some updated classic kid songs. I (Erin) loved when the boys instantly were able to recognize some old favorites and get in on the action right away. Here’s Bam Bam rocking out to “Itsy Bitsy Spider”!

I (Erin) was able to ask Jon a little bit about his journey into the crazy and fun world of kid’s music, and he was able to share a little bit with me.

I’ve always loved performing and being in front of others.  Making them smile has always been my favorite!  As a kid, I used to do plays and poetry contests at school and even ventriloquism.  In high school, I got into musical theater and that carried me into college and community theater afterwards.  In college, I started writing my own music and spent about 10 years in the “adult music” world in coffeehouses and such, expressing myself and honing my voice and guitar playing and trying a lot out on the crowds.  My wife Carrie and I always performed together, and still do (she’s the one with the lovely voice on the kids albums and plays the piano on them too). When we had our first child (my son) we would get out our instruments and play for them.  Naturally I would start writing little songs in our play. I started recording them on my phone when I thought I had something and eventually my phone started filling up.  Around that time I also got a job working in a children’s department of the downtown library and I began doing story times and music for large groups of kids.  In those times, I would try out songs on kids and they seemed to enjoy them so I’d try out some more on them.  In the meantime, people started asking “when is the kids CD coming out?” or “do you do birthday parties?”  Everyone knew me at the library as Mr. Jon already and things just kept coming together.  I have one memory when my wife and I were playing our “adult music” for a 1st Saturday in downtown Frederick out on the street. We finished a Jack Johnson cover, and a group of kids had gathered around (more so than the adults).  Carrie turns to me and says “why don’t you try that “Wheels On The Bus” version you’ve been working on.  We played it and the kids just started laughing and dancing.  After that we looked at each other and said “uh, wow that was awesome!”  So in some ways this whole Mr. Jon & Friends thing is a return to my roots, and in other ways it’s brand new (if that makes sense).  So with the kids music, it was just taking what we were already kind of doing, but doing it for kids.  We just wanted to make music that the whole family could enjoy, parents too.”

Jon is definitely on to something with his first album winning a 2013 Parents’ Choice award and now the exciting  release of his second, “Get Your Move On”. If you’d like more info about Jon or hear more samples of the songs, see video clips, or see an upcoming show schedule, be sure to visit https://mrjonmusic.com/. Thanks so much to Mr. Jon and Friends for allowing us to rock out with kids music we actually don’t mind 😉

Here’s the great news! Mr. Jon and Friends are giving away a CD to lucky reader; you can enter via the Rafflecopter below. Or, you can just head straight to iTunes, GooglePlay, Amazon, or CDbaby.com and grab a copy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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