Availability: Widely available online and off
Average Price: $14.98
Product Link: Hawaiian Playground
Rating:

“Look ma, I’m in Maui.”

Part of Putumayo’s “Playground”series, this disc is full of playful lyrics and the lively sounds of ukeleles and steel guitars. Like a 1950’s style Hawaiian luau, the music on this disk brings back images of Don Ho, Carmen Miranda, Hawaii Five-O and all those clam bake scenes from old beach movies. Okay… the specific memory it brings to mind may depend on your age and which re-runs you watch on rainy Sunday afternoons.

In any event, it certainly brings back an era before watching cable stations was an option. So retro is this music that track number six actually starts off with sound effects of a crackly old 1930’s 78 rpm vinyl disk, complete with ukulele and a Rudy Vallee impersonation singing “my dog has fleas”.

As with other discs in Putumayo’s various series design for kids, this disk is created by licensing songs produced by various artists. And as with the other disks in this series the selections are excellent and care is taken to ensure all recordings are well done. The end product is a very good presentation that gives the impression of a unified artistic thought.

As we listened to the disk we had visuals bouncing in our heads of hula girls dancing and coming close to place leis around our necks. Some songs took us a bit closer to a more mainland style beach music, but not too often. The singers and musicians were all very competent and the music is enjoyable.

The real question mark here is whether these are particularly “kid” disks. None of the selections we have heard from Putumayo stands up and shouts “kid music”. This is probably a great thing as it means the producers are not talking down to our children. They treat them as intelligent creatures who should be exposed to the variety of music that exists around the world – so much of it being so beautiful. Secondly, they are creating music that the parents can enjoy as well. In fact, we would be surprised if Mom and Dad didn’t hijack this disk the next time they throw a backyard BBQ and pool party.

The disk is beautifully packaged in a cardboard CD case with charming illustrations, full liner notes and a nice built in booklet that talks about Hawaii and the music to help shed a bit more on the subject.