After years of rocking in the 1980s with
the Del Fuegos, singer/songwriter
Dan Zanes created his own band,
the Dan Zanes Trio, in 1994. The group got started when
Zanes was hanging out with producer
Mitchell Froom in lower Manhattan; after adding drummer
Jerry Marotta, they began playing their minimalist, sparse blues and folk-rock to small crowds in small clubs like CBGB's Gallery. Produced by
Froom, the trio's debut LP
Cool Down Time -- a raw rock effort influenced by '60s-era R&B -- appeared in 1995. In 2001,
Zanes resurfaced with the children's folk-tinged
Rocket Ship Beach, featuring "friends"
Sheryl Crow,
Suzanne Vega,
Donald Saaf,
Rankin Don, and the Sandy Girls.
Zanes continued his
Dan Zanes & Friends children's series in 2002 with the release of
Family Dance and
Night Time.
House Party followed in 2003,
Sea Music and Parades and Panoramas: 25 Songs Collected by Carl Sandburg arrived in 2004, and
Catch That Train! landed the following year.
Zanes released
Nueva York! in 2008, a collection of songs from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide