The littlest ones are really getting into it. They spin and bounce in the Honolulu Museum of Art's grass courtyard, waving Day-Glo kerchiefs while Molly Whuppie sings "A Little Seed," a song based on a poem from the nineteenth century. When she goes sotto voce for the perennial favorite "Sleepy Bunny," the keiki dutifully collapse into feigned sleep. They rouse and sit rapt through "Crab Fish," derived from a rowdy Italian drinking song from the 1600s and sanitized for children in the 1800s. They sing along unaware-as the parents hovering nearby also are-that they're entranced by a tune from the distant past.
The dulcet-voiced singer, whose real name is Megan Aho, is a rarity in the already small constellation of Island musicians who play music for children. The self-described "song keeper" and "memory unlocker" is part performer, part archaeologist, reaching into the mists of antiquity to recover and perpetuate folk traditions. It isn't just the repertoire: Aho performs with an array of handmade puppets and found instruments-spoons, a brown paper bag and a saw, the weirdly human sound of which mesmerizes children-that hearken to a pre-industrial age. Born on Canada's Prince Edward Island and immersed in its Celtic and Bretonic musical traditions, Aho herself seems an atavism-her stage name is drawn from an old Celtic folktale about a take-no-prisoners woman who steals from giants. "It brings awareness to female fairy-tale characters who are in charge," she says. "Not the ones waiting for the prince to come and give them a kiss."
Aho's foray into children's music started online as a pandemic project-uploading videos to TikTok-that "spread by word of mom," Aho jokes, once restrictions on live performances eased. In addition to parties and events, she plays a free Wednesday morning show at Lanikai Park Pavilion in Kailua that's grown from just a few kids to dozens of families on any given week. One recent video on TikTok garnered eight million views, and that's where Aho launched Molly Whuppie's latest foray into song keeping.
"I asked what people wanted to hear, and they requested songs from their own childhoods, songs they haven't heard in sixty years, passed down from their parents and grandparents" she says. People around the world use the videos as lullabies; some play them for loved ones in hospice. "Someone contacted me to record a song her grandmother used to sing, and she plays it when she has panic attacks," Aho says. "That's when I realized this isn't just children's music. It's all-ages music ... or, maybe we're all still just children."
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