Dan Zanes

After years of rocking in the 1980s with <a href="spotify:artist:5I2TgxUl2Ovnb65E33evR2">the Del Fuegos</a>, singer/songwriter Dan Zanes created his own band, the Dan Zanes Trio, in 1994. The group got started when Zanes was hanging out with producer <a href="spotify:artist:6nEsI2S68MX6T0dVdLtido">Mitchell Froom</a> in Lower Manhattan; after adding drummer <a href="spotify:artist:49y11DLMhm3E67OP0OxjSO">Jerry Marotta</a>, they began playing their sparse blues and folk-rock to small crowds in clubs like the CBGB Gallery. Produced by <a href="spotify:artist:6nEsI2S68MX6T0dVdLtido">Froom</a>, the trio's debut LP, Cool Down Time, a raw rock effort influenced by '60s-era R&B, appeared in 1995. In 2001 Zanes resurfaced with the children's folk-tinged Rocket Ship Beach, featuring "friends" <a href="spotify:artist:4TKTii6gnOnUXQHyuo9JaD">Sheryl Crow</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3X0tJzVYoWlfjLYI0Ridsw">Suzanne Vega</a>, Donald Saaf, <a href="spotify:artist:2G1KPpK0ZjB5WZCBCZhTYQ">Rankin Don</a>, and the Sandy Girls. Zanes continued his Dan Zanes & Friends children's series in 2002 with the release of Family Dance and Night Time. House Party followed in 2003, Sea Music and Parades and Panoramas: 25 Songs Collected by Carl Sandburg arrived in 2004, and Catch That Train! landed the following year. Zanes released Nueva York! in 2008, a collection of songs from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, followed by 76 Trombones, a collection of Broadway tunes, in 2009. In 2011 Zanes and friends released Little Nut Tree, a family-style mixed-bag set of typically upbeat tunes that came packaged in a children's durable board book. Zanes teamed up with <a href="spotify:artist:3gBQ1U5dXpRXS6tlbyNTDM">Elizabeth Mitchell</a> (formerly of the group <a href="spotify:artist:59sabZEdH1o4BqCUzXGmd7">Ida</a>) for another family-friendly acoustic set, 2013's Turn Turn Turn. Zanes' next project was 2017's Lead Belly, Baby!, a set of fresh interpretations of songs by the legendary folk-blues artist <a href="spotify:artist:3Ovf2lytXSXWFM2cwsJACC">Lead Belly</a>, with guest appearances by <a href="spotify:artist:5yXAFDZNUNyO92l5WTImkO">Billy Bragg</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1JfH8gevkDviqs50A5NO0L">Chuck D</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4QZdOCb3UacKbQ1ybDFAKM">Valerie June</a>, Ashley Phillips, and many more. ~ Richard Skelly, Rovi