Welcome to the Music Thursdays segment! Each week here on Geek Alabama, Music Thursdays will feature music related content. Music Thursdays will feature an artist or band and their latest song and / or music video. People love music, and we here at Geek Alabama love featuring artists and bands!
“The Multiplication Song,” a new video from John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize winner Kelli Welli, is now out!
Learning the times tables has never been this much fun! “The Multiplication Song” has a bright, clean, spiffy sound with a tempo that moves along at a joyful speed. The video, chock full of kids having a blast with numbers, is replete with that same spunk and energy.
“I think of ‘The Multiplication Song’ video as a helper for kids to cement and remember their times tables over summer vacation,” says Portland, Oregon resident Kelli Welli. “The video was a real group effort, made by me with my kids and their friends, ages 2 – 11 at the time. All the kids in the video served as co-directors, and they had some great ideas!”
“The Multiplication Song” is included on NAPPA award-winning Robots Don’t Tell Jokes, Kelli Welli’s third album for families. The album was released last month by 8 Pound Gorilla Records.
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ABOUT KELLI WELLI
Kelli Caldwell, who performs for kids as Kelli Welli, is an active songwriter in both the children’s and singer-songwriter/Americana (“grown-up”) music arenas. She has released two award-winning children’s albums and was the Grand Prize Winner in the children’s category of the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Kelli was a winner of the West Coast Songwriters International Song Contest in 2019, 2020, and 2021, and she was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition in 2019 and 2020 and the Great American Song Contest in 2021. Although Kelli is relatively new to the thriving Portland, Oregon kindie performance scene, she has been named a TOP 5 Parent Pick by PDX Parent magazine.
Kelli has a Master of Publishing degree from Canada’s Simon Fraser University and a B.A. in Speech Communication with minors in Japanese and German from Oregon State University. She worked in public relations for Harper’s Magazine in NYC, then owned a creative design agency in Portland before focusing more fully on her music and raising her boy/girl twins. She has studied speech-level singing with The Voice Project, spent more than eight years on the Portland Songwriters Association board, and is currently a member of the Recording Academy, West Coast Songwriters, Nashville Songwriters Association International, Children’s Music Network, MusicPortland, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Kelli Welli’s releases include the albums Robots Don’t Tell Jokes (2022; National Parenting Products Award), Let’s Go, Pistachio (2021; National Parenting Products Award) and Ooh La La Too Doo Na Na Oop Bop Oop Bop Ribbit (2020; National Parenting Products Award, Moms Choice Gold Award), as well as three EPs released in 2016: LOVE, Turtle Doggie Monkey Froggie La La La La La, and Lullabies: For Kids and the People Who Love Them. Kelli’s debut Americana album for adults, Heart Wanderer, will release later this year.
8 Pound Gorilla Records is the inevitable offspring of 800 Pound Gorilla Records, the world’s largest Comedy Record Label. Moving into kids’ and family programming was a natural decision for the company’s founders, Ryan Bitzer and Damion Greiman. Once again, they’ve discovered an under-served genre. There’s a veritable treasure-trove of talented artists around the world making high-quality family-oriented music that remains largely unknown to mainstream audiences. With unique marketing strategies and analytics-driven audience building techniques, 8 Pound Gorilla Records is building a platform for this genre that will bring increased awareness and opportunities for these talented performers. They’re partnering with the best independent kids’ musicians on the planet to help build a community of music and joy for families everywhere.
Categories: Music Talk Stuff
