Jim Parker
AROUND THE WORLD
In 1987 having worked with the Touring version of The Polka Dot Door and my continuing to work with Ernie Coombs (CBC’s MR. DRESSUP) I was feeling it was time for me to commit more to becoming a Children’s entertainer/songwriter in my own right. As is often the case with me, I was in the shower one day when the idea for an entire album popped into my head. By the time the shower was over, I had the whole idea for a concept album and most of the title song, AROUND THE WORLD written. I wrote the rest of the songs over the following year with help from my wife to be, Susan and in March of 1988 went into Mytronics Recording Studio in Scarborough to record. The record was produced by my good friend and fellow songwriter, Chris Evans and was engineered by another good friend, Frank Watt. We finished in December of that same year.
The concept was a fun and hopefully exciting, musical airplane exodus to various imaginary spots including an island, the jungle and even the North Pole with dialogue connecting each song to the next. We introduced several characters including Professor Bellybottom, Howard The Alligator and what turned out to be an audience favourite...The Ungo Mungo Man.
I played acoustic guitars on the album while Chris played the electric guitar. Other friends who played on the album were, Dave Mandel (piano), Peter MacGibbon (bass), Norm Ryan (saxophone), Susan Graham (background vocals) and Julie Sparks (background vocals). We also had a group of kids come from Lakeside Public School in Ajax come in to do some background vocals on a few of the songs. My son Jordan joined in as well.
The Songs were…
AROUND THE WORLD
UNGO MUNGO MAN
FLYING
MONKEY WALK (Written by Kevin Knelman)
RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT
NORTH POLE BOOGIE
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR
UNDERWATER
HOWARD THE ALLIGATOR
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