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Ella Jenkins, the first lady of children's music, has died at 100

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Ella Jenkins, the first lady of children's music, has died at 100

Known as “the first lady of children’s music,” Ella Jenkins performed on all seven continents.

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Known as “the first lady of children’s music,” Ella Jenkins performed on all seven continents.

Courtesy of the artist

You may have grown up hearing one of Ella Jenkins’ signature tunes, like “You’ll Sing A Song and I’ll Sing A Song.” And you may have then played her music for your own children. Jenkins, who was known as “the first lady of children’s music,” died on Saturday at her residence in Chicago. She was 100.

Her death was confirmed by John Smith, associate director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, her longtime record label. She recorded 39 albums for Folkways, according to a statement from the label, over a career that spanned nearly 70 years.

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Jenkins was inspired by a lot of things — the folk tradition, the civil rights movement, the church.

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In 2013, she told NPR that when it comes down to it, music is just about sharing what you love. “Whatever you happen upon with something that you really feel that you really like,” she said, “I’d say listen to it, and listen to it often. If you want to try to repeat or imitate, do it in a way that when you’re sharing it, someone else is going to think it’s beautiful, too.”

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A lot of her songs had a signature style of call and response: “I say something, and you say it back to me.” The idea came to her from a kind of unexpected source.

Jenkins was born in St. Louis, Mo. on Aug. 6, 1924. But she and her family eventually moved to the South Side of Chicago, where one of the hottest acts in the clubs at the time was Cab Calloway. And in his famous song “Minnie the Moocher,” the “Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi” section is a call-and-response.

“Then you’d say it back — ‘ho-dee ho-dee ho-dee ho’,” Jenkins explained to NPR. “So I started doing not only with his songs — I thought I would make up few songs myself. Children can learn very easily by imitating, following the leader and then pretty soon be able to teach it themselves.”

Ashli Christoval grew up listening to Ella Jenkins. She’s now a children’s musician herself — performing as Jazzy Ash. Christoval says that Jenkins made her feel both proud and inspired of her heritage, in the face of what she calls a “daunting history.”

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“Across the board,” Christoval says, “African-American music, [the] Black music diaspora, is sort of approached in a really dark place. And granted, Black history has a really dark part of it, but I think that every culture has a right to be celebrated. “

And Ella Jenkins celebrated every culture.

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“You can travel around the world with Ella Jenkins through her songs,” says Cathy Fink, a Grammy-winning children’s musician and a friend of Jenkins.

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“Ella traveled the world and performed all over the world,” Fink says. “And as she did, she would learn from the people that she was with. She would learn words, or she would learn a song from another country. The first thing she’d say to a taxi driver is, ‘What’s your name and where are you from?’ And then she’ll say, ‘Well, tell me about your country.’ She sees meeting each person as an opportunity to make a friend and learn something.”

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And what she learned, she taught to generations of parents, teachers and children.

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‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

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‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer

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‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

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‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Neve Campbell in Scream 7.

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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.

Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture

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Smoke a joint and get deep with flowers at this guided floral design workshop in DTLA

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Smoke a joint and get deep with flowers at this guided floral design workshop in DTLA

Abriana Vicioso is the host of the Flower Hour, which takes place monthly.

(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Each flower carries a personal history. For Abriana Vicioso, the calla lily was her parents’ wedding flower — a symbol of her mother’s beauty. “She had this big, beautiful white calla lily in her hair,” Vicioso says. “I love my parents. They’re the reason I’m here. I’ll never forget where I came from.”

The Flower Hour begins with Vicioso announcing, with a warm smile: “Today is about touching grass.” The florist-by-trade gestures behind her to hundreds of flowers contained in buckets — blue thistles, ivory anemones and calla lilies painted silver — all twisted and unfurling into the air. “Tonight is going to be so sweet and intimate,” Vicioso says, eyeing the beautiful chaos at her feet. A grin buds across her face.

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Moments before the workshop, participants sit at candlelit tables exchanging horoscopes and comparing their favorite flowers. A mention of the illustrious bird-of-paradise flower elicits coos and awe from the women. Izamar Vazquez, who is from Jalisco, Mexico, reveals her fondness for roses, which make her feel connected to her Mexican roots.

Vicioso hosts her flower-themed wellness workshop near the iconic Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown L.A. In January, the first Flower Hour event sold out, prompting her to make it a monthly series. Vicioso describes the event as a “three-part journey” where participants are invited to drink herbal tea, smoke rose-petal-rolled cannabis joints and create a floral arrangement. “The guide is to connect with the medicine of flowers,” Vicioso says.

Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event's offerings.
Herbal tea is part of the event's offerings.
Floral arranging is the main activity.

Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event’s offerings.

The event is hosted at the Art Club, a membership-based co-working space. “The Flower Hour is really beautiful. Everyone gets to explore their creativity while meeting new people,” says Lindsay Williams, the co-owner of the Art Club.

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The idea for Flower Hour came to Vicioso during a conversation with her mother. “We joke all the time that flowers were destined to make their way into my life,” she says. She works as a florist and models on the side, even appearing in the pages of Vogue. Vicioso grew up in a Caribbean household, where flowers and offerings were part of daily life. “In my culture and religion, a lot of my family practices — an Afro-Caribbean religion — we build altars.”

Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion. “I’m Caribbean, so a lot of my family practices a Yoruba religion, which comes from Africa. In the Caribbean, it’s well known as Santería.”

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After a difficult year and a breakup, Vicioso wanted to marry her love of flowers with community building. Because Vicioso uses cannabis medicinally, the workshop naturally includes a smoking component. “My family has smoked cannabis for a lot of reasons for a long time. It’s a really healing plant,” she explains.

In the workshop, even the cannabis gets the floral treatment. Vicioso presents her rose-petal-wrapped joints on a silver platter at each table. She rolled each by hand. “If you’ve never smoked a rose-petal-rolled joint, the difference with this is it’s going to have roses that have a slight tobacco effect,” she announces.

During the workshop, Vicioso stresses the importance of buying cannabis from local vendors. The cannabis provided was purchased from a Northern Californian vendor. The wellness workshop aims to reclaim the healing ritual of smoking cannabis. “This is a plant that has been commercialized,” Vicioso says. “There’s a lot of Black and Brown people who are in jail for this plant.”

The resulting workshop is what Vicioso describes as “an immersive wellness experience that is the intersection of wellness, creativity, community and an appreciation of flowers.” The workshop serves as a reminder to enjoy Earth’s innate beauty in the form of flowers — including cannabis. “It’s this gift that the universe gave us for free and that I have this deep connection with,” Vicioso says.

Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (left). The workshop serves as a "third space" for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: Participants smoke marijuana during The Flower Hour, a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (top, letf). The workshop serves as a “third space” for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.

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After enjoying lavender chamomile tea and smoking a joint, Vicioso introduces the flowers to the group before inviting them to pick their own. She emphasizes each flower’s personality traits, describing green dianthus as a “Dr. Seuss” plant. Then, there are calla lilies with their “main character moment.” It gets personal. “Start thinking of a flower in your life that you can discover,” she says. “If you’re feeling like you need inspiration, you can always remember that these flowers have stories.”

Vicioso infuses wisdom into her instruction on floral arrangements: There are no mistakes. Let the flowers tell you where they want to go, she urges. Intuition will be your guide — the wilder, the better.

“Hecho in Mexico” reads a sticker on a bunch of green stems. “Like me,” says Vazquez with a laugh. “They’re all doing their own thing. Like a family,” she says later, arranging stems.

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The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements.

The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements at the sold-out event.

Two participants — Vazquez and Rebeca Alvarado — are friends who run a floral design company together called Izza Rose. Like Vicioso, the friends have a connection to flowers through their Latin American culture. They met Vicioso in the floral industry and were overjoyed to discover her workshop.

“This is a great way to connect with other people,” says Vazquez.

Alvarado agrees, adding: “You’re getting to know people outside of going to bars. You can connect in different ways when there’s an activity.”

Vazquez uses flowers to stay connected to her Mexican heritage, adding that she prefers to support Mexican vendors. In recent months, the downtown L.A. flower market has struggled to recover from ongoing ICE raids. “Some are scared to come back,” says Vazquez.

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Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.

Another participant, Barbara Rios, was attracted to the workshop for stress relief. “You can hang out with your friends, but it’s nice to do things with your hands,” she says. “I work a stressful job, and it’s nice to have that third space that we’re all craving.”

On this February night, the participants were predominantly women, save for one man. In the future, Vicioso hopes that more men learn to engage with flowers. “There’s a statistic about men receiving flowers for the first time at their funerals, and I think we have changed that,” she says.

To conclude the workshop, Vicioso encourages participants to build lasting friendships and incorporate flower arranging into their daily practice — even if it’s just with a small, inexpensive bouquet.

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“Get some flowers together, go to the park, hang out with each other and hang out with me,” she says. Participants leave with flower arrangements in hand. In the darkness of the night air, it briefly looks as though the women carry silver calla lilies that are blooming from their palms.

A finished floral arrangement.

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