Children in the 1980s and 1990s grew up listening to and watching a certain trio sing catchy songs like “Skinnamarink.” Young Randi Hampson was no different.
Like many others of her generation, she grew up immersed in the world of Sharon, Lois & Bram, but the Toronto resident had a unique point of view. As the daughter of Sharon Hampson, Randi used to travel with iconic Canadian artists, even wearing an elephant costume in the 1980s Junos, where the family’s musicians won Children’s Album of the Year for “Smorgasboard.” The songs Randi learned at summer camp became Sharon, Lois, and Bram classics.
“When you’re in the middle of that, you take it for granted,” says Randi. “But on the other hand, going backstage at iconic Toronto places and very, very famous theaters in the (US) like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and seeing my mother go to the White House and meeting the Clintons, I saw the impact of what (Sharon, Lois and Bram) were doing and I was immensely proud of it. “
It’s been more than 40 years since the legendary Toronto group, which also included Bram Morrison and the late Lois Lilienstein, began their work, and that young woman has grown up. Now a family attorney, Randi, who has performed with her mother as Sharon & Randi following Bram’s retirement from touring in 2019, has led the task of putting together the group’s first new album in 21 years. Scheduled for release on November 19, “Sharon, Lois & Bram: The Best of the Best Live,” of which Randi is a co-producer, is a collection of 25 never-before-heard live recordings of their North American concerts. It will allow a new generation to experience a “live” show for children by one of the most successful children’s entertainment groups on the continent.
When they started acting, “it was a simpler time,” Sharon said. “The world has changed. Children are more programmed … and exposed to more adult things at younger ages. But when we walk into the concert hall and sing the songs, they are the same. When you invite them to sing, they sing. When you invite them to take actions, they take actions. Our experience over the years is that people respond in the same way that they always have. “
For that reason, Sharon, Lois & Bram is as relevant as ever. Randi, along with Jacy Dawn Valeras and Kris Stengele, examined hundreds of concert recordings between 1989 and 1995, and settled on 22 hits, including “Rig-a-Jig-Jig”, “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” , “I Am Slowly Going Crazy”, “Hucklebuck”, “Peanut Butter & Jelly”, “Going to the Zoo” and the group’s title song, “Skinnamarink”.
Sharon says that adults who grew up with this music will want the album out of nostalgia. Sharon herself, now 78, is transported back in time when she listens to music. Especially moving was hearing herself and Bram with Lois, who left the group in 2000 and died in 2015.
“She has been absent for a long time, from acting and from the world, so getting back together, listening to each other be playful, talk, kibitzing, it was wonderful.”
“Listening to it from beginning to end was a bit exhausting,” said Bram, 80. “Those concerts were 30 years ago. You are singing along with him, but (on the recording) you are singing higher and faster than you can now. You’re older, but the music isn’t. “Hearing the new album, the audience” will feel the sense of the fun we had with the music and each other, “he said.
That chemistry on stage was real, as the singers were lifelong friends: Sharon met Lois through a mutual friend and Bram through the Toronto cafe scene. “Once we started working together, our lives were deeply connected,” said Sharon. “We were at each other’s weddings. Lois and I went shopping together. We knit and bake together, and our families are totally connected. “
Sharon’s husband, Joe, taught Bram, originally a solo folk artist, accompanist, and elementary school teacher, how to sing in harmony, Bram recalled.
When Lois left the group after her husband’s death, they continued to spend time together, and when the trio became Sharon & Bram, they never considered replacing her, Bram said. “Our life together was much more than what it was on stage or in the recording studio.”
Together, the trio produced 21 full-length albums, beginning with their iconic, triple platinum “One Elephant, Deux Éléphants.” The rapid rise in popularity was unexpected, Sharon said. “We didn’t realize we were starting a career that would include records, live performances, and tours.”
Sharon, Lois & Bram sold performances at all major Canadian concert halls and prominent venues in the United States, received countless awards, and sold millions of albums worldwide. A Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award recognized their support for social welfare programs in North America, and all three members received an Order from Canada for providing the best in participatory music for children and their families.
They expanded their reach with two critically acclaimed television series, “The Elephant Show” (1984-1988) and “Skinnamarink TV” (1998-2003), and an award-winning and best-selling picture book, “Sharon, Lois & Bram’s Skinnamarink, “In 2019. More books, including” An Elephant Came Out to Play “and” Peanut Butter, “are on the way.
Four decades after they first took the stage, Sharon, Lois & Bram are still as popular and, thanks in part to their foray into social media, as relevant as ever. On TikTok, a “Skinnamarink” video, posted on #SkinnamarinkDay on October 8, received 4.4 million views. Through these channels, people write deep messages, Randi says, “about how much Sharon, Lois & Bram meant to them and continue to do so. It is so wonderful. “
Offline, children of all ages play at the Sharon, Lois & Bram Playground and Music Garden in Mount Pleasant Village, the neighborhood where Sharon and Bram have lived for three decades. All of her work, Sharon said, “is about bringing music and making it accessible to families so they can participate and enjoy it together. That is the main goal and that has never changed. I think that’s what we achieved. “
“I want his legacy to be imperishable,” Randi said. “There is no reason why the new generation of children should not love this music as much as the old.”
Reference-www.thestar.com