Imagine Simpsons neighbor Ned Flanders entertaining your children, and you get an idea of what it’s like listening to Danna Banana’s Daddy-O! with phrases like “ding-a-ling ding-dong Daddy.” “The Owie Song” speaks to every kid’s daily battle through life’s obstacles. “Dugak” features Broadway and TV’s Hal Linden (Barney Miller) on a rocking salute to baby gibberish. This is a sweet, simple, delightful way to share time with the younger kids. The whole album has a good beat, and I predict little ones will dance to it, whether or not they understand the complexities of songs like “My Favorite Meatball.”
Awards
Best Party Entertainment
He’s more than a giant toddler on a teeny pink bike. Danna Banana (a.k.a. Dan Cohen), befuddled but loving dad-for-hire, has earned A-list status on the silly circuit. He sings and plays guitar, he’s a classically trained operatic baritone, and he has an interactive, playful style that makes kids—and grown-ups—honk with laughter. Banana garnered the grand prize in the acclaimed John Lennon Songwriting Contest for “What Would You Do?,” featured on his fabulous first CD, Bananappeal, and his newest, Daddy-O!, is equally contagious. But it’s Danna Banana’s groovy live gigs—like a Children’s Museum of Manhattan’s elbow-room-only benefit that drew the broods of Julianne Moore, John Leguizamo, and Tony Award winner B. D. Wong—that make kids the stars. Sans stage fright.
Neighbors Saying Farewells to Bookshop They Couldn’t Save
In the final week at the Morningside Bookshop, there was no letup in the energetic schedule of events that have attracted neighbors for years, including the weekly singalongs featuring the children’s performer Danna Banana.
Reviews:
…”Your Reward” closes Hickman’s joyful ruminations about life with gospel sway. “This is your reward, spit up on the floor at four in the morning,” she sings without a hint of regret. And God bless her, she’s right. Motherhood may tie a woman down, but it’s not always a prison.
[Hickman] broadens her musical palette with…the soulful jazz of Dan Cohen‘s paean to parenthood, Your Reward…
From the comically countrified “Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?” to the full gospel choir send-up of the children’s song “Your Reward,” Hickman exercises her immense vocal ability, soaring at one moment and drawling out her syllables at the next.
This is Texas Music
Dan Cohen’s soulful “Your Reward” features the voices of Hickman, Gretchen Phillips and Ruthie Foster – the latter pair contribute vocally elsewhere on “Motherlode” – and here, aided by a brass section, they bring this collection to a rousing climax! Yes, I said climax!
iParenting Media ‘Hot’ Selection
2006
John Lennon Songwriting
Grand Prize Winner 2002
Children’s Music Web Award 2001– Winner, best song for older children– “Eleventy-Four”
Children’s Music Web Awards 2001– Winner, Best Recording For Young Children– Bananappeal
John Lennon Songwriting Grand Prize Winner 2002
"Feel like one big playdate to which everyone’s invited"
-Jewish Forward
"This is a sweet, simple, delightful way to share time with the younger kids."
-Metro Kids
"The joys of father hood re at the heart of [The Danna Banana] collection"- Parenting Magizean
“Bright tunes and comic, clever lyrics” -LA Times
"Ripe Talent!” -NY Post
