Tin Can Alley Entertained Kid Folk at Caffe Lena 2/23/20

Folk duo Michael Eck and Brian Melick, known together as Tin Can Alley, celebrated Woody Guthrie‘s 80th Anniversary of writing “This Land is Your Land” by offering a free performance for children and families at Caffe Lena on Sunday.

Complete with lessons on how to use sugar packets as percussion and some historical context for the music, Tin Can Alley played classic folk songs from American folk icons like Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Josh White.

The performance was tailored to a younger crowd, although some older folks did join to celebrate Guthrie while drinking afternoon tea and enjoying cookies. Eck and Melick engaged the children with fun noises while singing about riding in a car, demonstrating a lot of atypical percussion instruments in Melick’s “hobo suitcase” drum kit.

The hour long show culminated in a rousing “This Land is Your Land” that included all six verses Guthrie had written while battling Huntington’s Disease in New York City in 1940. Joined by children and adults alike who clapped and sang along, Eck noted, “This should probably be our new national anthem.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, unified by the messages of Guthrie’s words.