THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
IT'S THE FOOD question that makes Cathy Fink pause.
Really, she ought to have an answer for this. Millions of little kids consider the ``favorite food'' question essential when making friends, and Fink is certainly familiar with little kids.
Still, the Cathy half of Cathy and Marcy, winner of countless Parents Choice awards for their music, has to stop and think.
``It might be garlic,'' she says finally. ``Marcy and I have four food groups we deal with: coffee, garlic, chocolate and ice cream.''
That's a menu nearly as eclectic as their musical repertoire. Cathy and Marcy Marxer, who will perform at the Jewish Community Center of Tidewater on Sunday, Feb. 4, use folk, rock 'n' roll, blues, swing - you name it - in their tunes aimed at kids ages 2 to 12. Did I mention the cowboy rope tricks, yodeling and steel drums?
``Our concerts for families are all participatory,'' Fink said in a telephone interview from the singers' home in Silver Spring, Md. ``It's not like a theater thing where the show is on the stage and the people are out in the audience and they just sit out there and appreciate the show. We teach the audience how to yodel. It's just part of our style to get people singing along with us.
``Nothing builds community more than people singing together. Your community can be as small as your family or as large as your world.''
Cathy and Marcy have toured the world with their children's music from albums such as ``Nobody Else Like Me,'' which addresses physical as well as cultural differences between children; ``Air Guitar,'' which tucks history, friendship, nostalgia, humor and ecology into one wrapper; and ``A Parent's Home Companion,'' which looks at the trials and rewards of parenthood.
Now get this: They have no kids of their own. Yep, Cathy and Marcy are, well, just Cathy and Marcy.
``We don't have kids of our own, but we spend a lot of time with kids,'' Fink said. ``We don't feel like you can just imagine what it's like to work with kids and then create the material. You have to be out there in the trenches.''
Fink, 42, has worked and volunteered in day-care centers and done student teaching. Marxer, 39, was trained in theater arts, attended the Ringling Brothers clown school and taught deaf children.
But music called them. Fink once played guitar for her day-care students and found herself getting calls from other schools eager to book her. She began touring in 1975 and kept meeting Marxer on the same musical circuits.
In 1981, the two joined forces. Since then, they have produced and recorded at least 30 albums and made 7,000 performances around the world. And, sometimes, they baby-sit for friends.
Hence, they have some first-person experience to bring to ``A Parent's Home Companion.'' Plus, Fink points out, they were once children themselves some 30 years ago.
``We could write the songs on those albums partly based on that experience,'' she said. ``I was probably a big challenge (as a child). It really isn't every mother's desire to have their daughter grow up and be an itinerant folk-singing banjo player.''
A new Cathy and Marcy album of lullabies, ``Blanket Full of Dreams,'' will be released in May. Two new concert videos will be available near the end of March.
``We've created a career that has a lot of variation, and we're not likely to get bored or run out of ideas,'' Fink noted.
``We're lucky,'' Fink added. ``We get to do what we want to do for a living.'' by CNB