The “First Lady of Children’s Folk Song,” Ella Jenkins, was a renowned musician, educator, and entertainer. She passed away. Jenkins passed away “peacefully” at her longtime residence in Chicago, Illinois, according to a statement shared on Instagram by Smithsonian Folkways, the label that published all 39 of her recordings during her lifetime. She was one hundred years old.
Ella Louise Jenkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 6, 1924, but her family soon relocated to the south side of Chicago. Despite having no professional musical training, Jenkins learned about gospel music, blues, and rhyming children’s games and songs here. Her Uncle Flood also introduced her to the harmonica. She earned her degree in sociology from San Francisco State University in 1951.
After coming back to Chicago, Jenkins started writing children’s songs and volunteering at several leisure centers. She was hired by the Y.W.C.A. in 1952 as a teenage program director, and shortly after, she was given a regular hosting position on Chicago public access television, which she named This is Rhythm. In 1956, Jenkins turned to music full-time and began performing at school assemblies all around the United States. She met folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein, who recommended that she send Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways Records, a trial tape. Asch then released Jenkins’ debut album, Call-And-Response: Rhythmic Group Singing, the following year.
Jenkins released 39 albums under the Folkways label, including Multicultural Children’s Songs in 1995, which has long been the label’s best-selling CD. Her repertoire consists of original songs, nursery rhymes, African-American folk songs, rhythmic chants, and worldwide music in many different languages. She is known for her characteristic call-on-response singing. She made appearances on Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Barney & Friends. In 2004, the Recording Academy presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jenkins’ final CD, Camp Songs with Ella Jenkins and Friends, was released in 2017, and her song “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2007. In a New York Times article on Jenkins’ centennial, American studies professor Gayle Wald stated, “She found this way of introducing children to sometimes very difficult topics and material, but with a kind of gentleness.” “She never lied to them. She certainly never talked down to them.”
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