Hummin,' strummin' for kids

From the time she picked up a plastic guitar as a child and strummed it, JoAnne Kucerak always knew that she could write songs. "I just didn't think anyone cared!" she joked in a recent interview.

But after 10 years of writing and performing songs for children, Mrs. Kucerak is finding that her listeners care a lot. The 11 children's songs on "You're Invited!," her first album, are getting rave reviews from pint-sized patrons across the Albany Diocese.

From "Mama, There's a Monster," a lighthearted look at the monsters lurking under a child's bed, to the environmental message of "The World Polluted," Mrs. Kucerak's music conveys an understanding of a child's world. That's because she was first inspired by her own children, 12-year-old Elizabeth and 9-year-old Christina.

For own kids

"Both of them were adopted through Catholic Charities," the musician explained. When Elizabeth joined the family years ago, Mrs. Kucerak immediately "just sang to her. It's a natural thing. It's a miracle, right in your hands."

As the children grew older, she made up rhyming bedtime stories for them. At the same time, she played the guitar and sang in the choir at her parish, Blessed Sacrament in Mohawk. She had taught herself to play Beatles' songs in the ninth grade and considered her playing "proficient enough for what I need," but didn't connect her music and children's stories until she decided she didn't like the ending of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

"It was so sad," she remembered, so "I rewrote it. Jackie comes back as a grownup and brings his kids...`and laughter rang out once again in the land of Honalee.'"

AuditioningBY the time her children entered Annunciation School in Ilion (since closed), Mrs. Kucerak was a willing volunteer to help with First Friday Masses. She started out playing standard liturgical music but soon added her own inventions.

"And lo and behold, they really liked the songs!" she said. "I got to the point where I was writing songs with the students based on their vocabulary words, classroom themes, what they happened to think about."

From this venue came several songs featured on the new album, including "I Like You," her first original tune. By the time Mrs. Kucerak began to think about an album, her volunteer work at her children's school had turned into a career, traveling from school to school in the Ilion area to present a program of her songs.

Guided on path

Her immediate success shocked even the musician herself. "I said to God, `You tell me, because I know this is a lot of fun, but is this the direction I should be going?' Forty-five minutes later, I met someone who said, `Do you know how to write songs?' I said, `Okay, that must be a clue.'"

The next step was assembling an album. "Each time I wrote a song, I said, `The response is so good, the kids enjoy it so much -- but I don't have it recorded,'" she remembered. "When I got to 11 songs, the time had come."

Like her program for the elementary schools, Mrs. Kucerak wanted her album to be a "hand-clappin', toe-tappin', finger-snappin' sing-along." She also wanted her music to teach a lesson: "I am notorious for sliding in a point," she remarked.

First album

With the support of her husband, Frank, she put together a series of simple songs, primarily backed by keyboardist Frank Talarico. (Mrs. Kucerak does play the guitar on a few songs, but she decided that she did not like the way her guitar sounded when recorded: "Being my first cassette, you live and learn as you go along," she said.) Her own children and some others from the area sing along on several songs.

Most of the tunes have a message, but even the more somber ideas are conveyed lightly, with an upbeat rhythm that follows from song to song. On "I Need to Listen," the singer mishears what various people say to her: "What did my mama say/ When I walked out the door today?/ Well, did she say, `An iguana's on our gate?'/ Or did she say, `Johanna, don't be late!'"

The title song tells the story of a dragon being chased by a knight as he tries to deliver party invitations.

Moral contents

With the success of the album -- 500 copies sold in eight weeks -- Mrs. Kucerak said that "I could see that song as a little book for kids. A lot of these songs have moral value to them."

The musician's favorite songs are "Take the Time to be Kind" and "Honesty."

"They leap out at me the most because of their message," she said. "If I could have a little kid walking down a corridor humming it to himself, or playing outside and humming it, that's a whole lot better to me than their slugging each other or saying, `You're ugly.'"

Environmental messageBY far, the most pointed song is "The World Polluted." While the verses jokingly explore an animal's view of pollution -- "Whales in the ocean, swimming all about/ Don't blow toxic waste from their waterspouts!" -- the chorus brings home a serious message: "The world was never suited/ Day after day to be polluted."

"I want to get the message across in a fun way that kids will remember," Mrs. Kucerak stated. "You certainly can put slow songs on for kids. But keeping it upbeat was the idea I went in with. I'm really targeting kids anywhere from three or four years old and up."

Recently, another bit of success came Mrs. Kucerak's way. She had written a children's song in honor of Atlanta's Summer Olympics, titled simply "The Olympic Song," and a friend who worked in the Olympic boxing venue offered to play it there. The song was well-received, and continues to be played for those in attendance.

"It's such a rush, I can't tell you!" Mrs. Kucerak boasted.

Gift from God

While Mrs. Kucerak's songs do not contain overtly religious themes, she is quick to point out that her music is a gift from God.

"Without the connection that I have with God, without the gift of faith, I don't think I'd be doing this," she said. "I pray before every performance for the opportunity to share the music, and to please let them hear it better than it is!"

In the future, she hopes to create another album, but "it's not my intent to go nationwide," she stated. "Within a two-hour radius, I'm perfectly happy. I have this exquisite opportunity to share the music with kids. In my own way, this is a ministry."

(To order "You're Invited!" send $12.95 to Gordon Place Music, PO Box 624, Ilion, NY 13357. To contact JoAnne Kucerak concerning a performance, call 315-894-9216.) [[In-content Ad]]