Sharon and Bram are back
After spending twenty-two years as two-thirds of Canada’s most famous children’s entertainers Sharon, Lois & Bram, Sharon Hampson and Bram Morrison are far from ready to retire. When Lois Lilienstein decided to stop touring in 2000, Sharon and Bram packed up their instruments and went back on the road doing what they’ve always done best, singing for children and their families.
The show is simpler now, built around the folk-based music they began with, the lively action songs, the rhyming and counting songs, the energetic silliness and rhythmic audience participation songs that fill an entire concert hall with roaring, exuberant joy.
In 1978 Sharon and Bram left busy individual careers to form a trio with a Mariposa In The Schools colleague, Lois Lilienstein. They intended to make one record, which they called One Elephant, Deux Éléphants. It was an overnight sensation. Sharon, Lois & Bram were hailed as “simply the best musicians now recording for children in North America and probably the world.” They soon were crossing the country to sing to thousands of cheering families. The trio went on to create sixteen more recordings, three song-books, and two television series. They won three Juno Awards. They played in every major concert hall in Canada, and in the United States at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and the White House. Their songs have become indelibly fixed in the musical memories of generations of Canadian children, classics like Five Little Monkeys, One Elephant, Deux Éléphants, Tingalayo, and of course their signature tune, Skinnamarink.
What is the secret? What is their music all about? “The joy of sharing music,” says Bram. “Giving children the opportunity to hear real music played on real instruments, in many different musical styles, from many different musical traditions.” You won’t find curriculum embedded in this music, although many a child has learned to count by singing along with those naughty little monkeys, and learned how language works by rhyming “goats wearing coats", or "I won't wear green - it's not fit to be seen". These are songs that often go back generations, that have been sung by parents to their children since before our grandparents’ time and have become part of our musical heritage. “We love the sound of families’ voices singing together,” says Sharon, “and the expression of pure delight on the faces of parents and children as they share the music with each other.”
Now, when young parents introduce Sharon and Bram to their children, they often say “I was a fan of yours when I was their age.” Their eyes shine with pleasure, knowing that the tradition continues…that some things don’t change.
Sharon Hampson
Sharon has been surrounded by music all her life. She comes from a close-knit family with a strong social conscience and grew up with the songs of Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and other politically and socially active artists. Her commitment to music and her sense of the possibilities of understanding between people reflect those early influences. As a child she took piano lessons, played cello in her high school orchestra, and began learning how to play the audience waving pom-poms and twirling batons as a cheerleader. She was just 17 years of age when she made her professional debut as a folk singer. She was sitting in the audience at a Toronto coffee house when someone announced her, stuck a guitar in her hands and said, “Sing!” “What else could I do? There was no turning back.”
And she's been singing ever since. Her clear melodic voice and emotional directness were perfectly suited to the songs of the sixties’ folk music revival. She toured the folk clubs and festivals of North America until she settled in Toronto with her husband Joe, a singer/songwriter and member of The Travellers. While raising her two children, Randi and Geoff, she sang at the Mariposa Folk Festival, helped organize Mariposa In The Schools and the children’s area of the Mariposa Folk Festival, and taught in the Toronto libraries’ Music for Children program. She sang frequently on radio and television, and recorded two albums: Songs for Children and Other People and Down in Hickory Hollow.
Sharon is a two-time breast cancer survivor and has been active in the breast cancer community since 1993. She’s a (very young) grandmother now, who takes great joy in passing on a treasury of song to a new generation, and two very special little boys, Ethan and Elijah. Her home is still filled with music, and when she and her family and friends gather for a party, they invariably end up singing the night away.
Bram Morrison
Bram began his musical career as guitar accompanist to the noted folklorist and singer, Alan Mills. For four years he traveled with Mills across the U.S. and Canada, building his own extensive repertoire in English and French Canadian folksong. Between tours Bram was active in the Toronto folk music scene, singing frequently on television and at the Mariposa Folk Festival.
His first performing experience, however, was as an actor during his high school and university days, and many of the qualities that give special distinction to his musical performance today are part of the actor in him--his comic timing and sense of the burlesque, his narrative skill and masterful gift for mimicry. Through his association with Alan Mills, Bram became interested in working with children. He entered Teacher's College and taught in the Toronto school system for the next seven years, five of them as an itinerant music teacher. As a folk singer, he worked with Mariposa In The Schools and Prologue to the Performing Arts, doing hundreds of concerts and workshops in Ontario schools. His work with children, teachers in the field and teachers-in-training was known and immensely respected all over the province.
Bram's easy rapport with children and tongue-in-cheek sense of humour lead one to suspect there is quite a bit of the mischievous child still in him. There is also an inordinate curiosity about all manner of unusual subjects. It is not uncommon to find him sitting on the floor surrounded by open dictionaries avidly tracing the origins of words. The philosophy of science also holds a special interest for him.
Bram's family, like Sharon's, is thoroughly musical. He credits his wife, Ruth, with inspiring and enlarging his knowledge of pop music, Broadway show tunes and classical music. His six grandchildren, Lindsay, Erik, Spencer, Brendan, Zachary and Zoë, keep him singing at home as well as in concert.
