“Heroic journey” |
| Posted: 23 Oct 2010 09:32 PM PDT Media Center Related Topics Related Stories  Yes, his name really is Jonathan Sprout. If you don't know that moniker, the children in your life probably do, and they'll be able to see the award-winning children's entertainer perform this week at Lancaster County Convention Center. Sprout, who in the last 15 years has produced a series of acclaimed children's albums, will be among the performers at the Baby and Toddler Expo, which runs Friday and Saturday, Oct. 29 and 30, at the convention center on Penn Square in downtown Lancaster. More than 100 local exhibitors will be sharing their wares and knowledge of child-related health care, clothing, toys, equipment and more at the expo, with entertainment provided by Sprout, Bob the Builder and Angelina Ballerina. Sprout will perform at 2 p.m. Saturday. He's no stranger to central Pennsylvania. "I've done a lot of school concerts in Lancaster County at elementary schools," said Sprout, who lives in Langhorne, north of Philadelphia. Sprout's focus as a songwriter is to match catchy tunes with lessons about American heroes. We're talking real heroes, not the kind found on reality television: folks like Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt and Pocahontas, not to mention Milton S. Hershey. A song titled "Chocolate King" leads off Sprout's album "American Heroes 3," which was nominated for a Grammy for best children's recording earlier this year. Such a high-profile accolade seems miles away from Sprout's modest beginnings. A one-time psychology major at Bucknell University, he started out like a lot of aspiring singer-songwriters, playing coffeehouses and other minor venues. Sprout, now 58, wasn't writing or singing for children back then. But he eventually made what he called "a decision of the heart, not the head," thanks to his mom. "My mother was an elementary school teacher," Sprout said. "She pleaded with me to sing in her class." His first children's album came out in 1986. In 1994, Sprout had another epiphany. "I was lucky to have the Philadelphia Inquirer do a feature on me," Sprout recalled. When he scanned the paper to read his profile, he noticed an adjoining article about kids and their heroes. "The Top 10 [included] Beavis and Butthead, Bart Simpson" — irreverent, rule-breaking cartoon characters — "and some successful athletes I didn't consider as heroes." That got Sprout thinking. "Where's Ben Franklin? Where's Thomas Edison? Where's Eleanor Roosevelt?" Franklin and Edison made it onto Sprout's first hero-themed album, appropriately titled "American Heroes," in 1996. A 2000 follow-up, "More American Heroes," featured barrier-breaking baseball legend Jackie Robinson and Helen Keller, among others. The Robinson and Keller songs are on Sprout's set list for his appearance here, he said. Hershey, who got his start in Lancaster before building a chocolate empire in the town that bears his name, is celebrated on "American Heroes 3" as not just a candy man, but a man of great generosity. Though Sprout's not a historian by training, he enjoys biographies, and each of his hero-centered albums requires hitting the books hard research. "American Heroes 3" took nearly four years to finish, Sprout said. He's in the midst of producing another album in the heroes series, but don't expect it soon. He has a lot of studying to do. "I only want to do it right," Sprout said. The Baby and Toddler Expo runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30, at the Lancaster County Convention Center, 25 S. Queen St., in downtown Lancaster. For more information, call Lancaster Newspapers at 291-8800.
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