Sunny Side of the Street
The world hardly needed more evidence, butThe Sunny Side of the Streetproves unequivocally that there's nothing John Lithgow puts his name on that doesn't secrete charm by the bucketful. This particular CD, his third for kids, is fairly well drenched in it. The spirit of the disc is captured handily by the cover art, which pictures Lithgow as a bumbershoot-toting dandy skipping along Broadway amid an animated coterie; a few songs in, you can practically hear him soft-shoeing it in front of a sweet-sounding kids' chorus on the gently encouraging "Pick Yourself Up." Guest stars abound--the vocal marvel Madeleine Peyroux on the title track, cabaret star Maude Maggart on the lively "Baby!," andSeinfeld'sWayne Knight on "Inka Dinka Doo"--but as on previous discs, Lithgow shines brightest when the spotlight is aimed squarely and exclusively on him. "I Always Say Hello to a Flower" allows him to cut up to such bent-minded lyrics as "I always say bonjour to a lilac/Bonjour bonjour bonjour/But I'm absolutely mute with a bully in a suit/And I never talk to fruit, heaven knows," while "The Laughing Policeman" features him guffawing unstoppably--not to mention contagiously--for a good two minutes. "Be Human," on which the sage advice to "have a tender word for every animal and bird" is doled out repeatedly before a kicky Dixieland band, benefits from a particularly astute ending: "A toucan can't be human," Lithgow speak-sings with characteristic clear-eyed bonhomie before letting out a squawk, "but you can!" Few screwballs make such sweet-sounding sense.--Tammy La Gorce