Last summer, visitors to Chicago's photogenic Millennium Park were treated to the unlikely sight of Will Oldham performing to a crowd composed largely of kids and their picnicking parents. The occasion was a celebration of the Chicago-born Shel Silverstein, and therein lies the writer's broad appeal. Silverstein, of course, wrote some of the most beloved children's books of all time (Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Missing Piece, A Light in the Attic, The Giving Tree), but his cartoons and poems also appeared regularly in the pages of Playboy. Silverstein wrote plenty of songs, too, ranging from kiddie fare (the diaper-set staple "Boa Constrictor") to songs made famous by the likes of Loretta Lynn ("One's On the Way"), Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show ("The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'"), and Johnny Cash, who famously recorded both "25 Minutes to Go" and "A Boy Named Sue".
It's the late Silverstein's friendship and frequent collaboration with singer Bobby Bare that brought about Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein and its attendant all-star cast. Bare recorded several of Silverstein's songs, beginning in the early 1970s, and eventually son Bobby Bare, Jr. got in on the act too. Between the two of them-- and of course taking into account Silverstein's enduring appeal-- an uncommonly good line-up of other friends and followers quickly came on board. Alas, Oldham's not here, but plenty of Silverstein peers (such as John Prine and Kris Kristofferson, both of whom had written with Silverstein) are, plus younger fans (like My Morning Jacket and Andrew Bird), with Silverstein's whimsical but memorable compositions given an array of welcome if mostly safe readings.
Perhaps most unconventional is Bird's take on the title track, if only because Bird apparently knew Silverstein only as a writer and crafted his own Bird-like tune around the poem he picked. Yet several other tracks here reveal a few subtle new facets of Silverstein and performer alike. My Morning Jacket, for example, recorded a version of "Lullabys, Legends and Lies" true to its roots (it was the title track of Bare's 1973 collection of Silverstein songs), but much more straight-up country than the band is generally known for (MMJ closes the album with a similarly conservative-- duration aside-- "26 Second Song"). Frank Black and Joey Santiago turn "The Cover of the 'Rolling Stone'" inside out, into a strange conflation of Black's own country forays and Santiago's trademark skronk. Dr. Dog turns the folky "Unicorn Song" into a kitschy 60s trip.
