Ravinia 2023 Issue 5

ALEX JOHNSON The album builds thematically with a beautiful crescendo in “The Life That’s In You,” and that’s not just acknowledging the lush string accompaniment. The song delivers the Okee Dokee perspective on the circle of life, Lansing explains: “It’s all about connection. Really, in the end, the forest is one big organism, working together.” Although it’s “the peak of the al- bum,” as Lansing describes it, “The Life That’s In You” is the penultimate track. After that profound roundelay comes a denouement in the form of a beautiful lullaby. “Little Dipper and Big Dipper” subtly uses word play to sing about a mother-child pair of bears—and about constellations (Ursa Minor and Ursa Major) and infinite love. It’s the kind of songwriting that hits you in the feels, in the very best way. It’s no surprise that many of the musicians who inspire them are be- loved singer-songwriters. In addition to the folk trifecta of John Denver, Cat Stevens, and Bob Dylan, whose songs they plucked out when they first began playing guitar, “we’ve really been drawn to songwriters like John Prine, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Gillian Welch,” Mailander says. Last year, at a festival in Eau Claire, WI, they got to meet Béla Fleck, who paid them a huge compliment: Fleck’s kids are Okee Dokee fans. And what about when they were kids themselves—what music were they drawn to in their youth? “I listened to a lot of Raffi. My parents tell me they weren’t allowed to listen to anything else but Raffi in the car, or else I’d cry,” Lansing says with a chuckle. “He was a huge influence on us becoming children’s musicians. We’ve always loved that guy.” Musicals were big in the Lansing house, too. “My parents didn’t really listen to pop music,” he continues. “We listened to Broadway musicals, like Les Mis[ érables ], The Sound of Music, Annie . That stuff was always on, and we were belting along.” When he was in high school, he saw the classic Coen Brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou ; its soundtrack album, a mix of bluegrass, gospel, and folk, became a bestselling phenomenon. It had a lasting impression on Lansing: “That’s why I picked up the banjo.” Beyond the music, Lansing and Mailander have always gone a few steps past simply recording an album. Instead, with each project, they envi- sion different ways to extend the reach of their songs. In the past decade, they’ve produced two children’s books with illustrator Brandon Reese. And each entry in the Adventure Album series had a multimedia component: A videographer joined them for their monthlong forays into the wilderness, so they could eventually produce a DVD with music videos, educational segments, and some plain-old camp- ing tomfoolery. For Brambletown , they’re collab- orating with animator Eric Power, who’s making a construction-paper world brought to life with stop-mo- tion skills. A two-minute trailer is currently on YouTube; the end result will be a short film, about half an hour long. “It’s pretty awesome, but very time-intensive,” Lansing notes. “He’s literally cutting every leaf and twig and eyeball—he cuts it out of paper, by hand. Very amazing art. “Music is our main medium for getting everything across. Music and lyrics are our art. We’ve honed it together, over the years,” Lansing continues. “But in terms of the entire package, we want to create a world for kids and families to be a part of. That’s what we’ve done with the conceptual nature of our albums. We don’t want it to just be about us—our art, our brand. We want to open up a space where art is accessible, and everyone can do it.” Native Chicagoan Web Behrens has spent most of his journalism career covering arts and culture. His work has appeared in the pages of the Chicago Tribune , Time Out Chicago , Crain’s Chicago Business , and The Advocate and Chicago magazines. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 15 – AUGUST 27, 2023 20