Whether as a modern-day Pete Seeger or Pied Piper, former Del Fuegos frontman Dan Zanes continues a thriving post-rock career, encouraging families to dance and sing together. “Polly Wolly Doodle” and “The Hokey Pokey” are concert staples for Zanes’ band of gypsies.
Zanes also harbors an infectious scholarly obsession with grown-up folk music, first evinced by 2003’s Sea Music, a collection of sea shanties and maritime songs. Parades and Panoramas collects 25 songs from The American Songbag—a 280-song collection first published in 1927, compiled and annotated by Illinois poet laureate Carl Sandburg. Included is a 60-page booklet with archival photos and commentary on each selection by both Sandburg and Zanes, who once again taps young friend Sam Sullivan to deliver a drinking song. Sullivan’s lead vocal for Songbag’s “Son of a Gambolier” follows Sea Music’s “All for Me Grog.”