Jamie Broza
My Daddy Is Scratchy

(Good Mood)

First Appeared in The Music Box, June 2005, Volume 12, #6

Written by John Metzger

Jamie Broza is a four-time Emmy-winning composer and arranger, so it isn’t surprising that his forays into children’s music are lushly orchestrated and impeccably produced affairs. Fusing together an eclectic range of material, his sophomore outing My Daddy Is Scratchy dabbles in pop, hip hop, jazz, Celtic folk, blues, and rock with all the theatricality of a Broadway show, and many of its tracks are introduced via Broza’s own anecdotal interviews with children. Punctuated by horns and shaded by strings, his songs are delivered in sing-speak style by both kids and adults, and as an array of sound effects surround the voices, the tunes are inflated to life-size, Disney-esque proportions. Still, for all the aurally pleasing, aesthetic detail, there’s little contained on My Daddy Is Scratchy into which anyone, young or old, can sink his teeth. It’s cute, it’s charming, and it’s tremendously well-packaged. At its core, however, the album also is inordinately bland. Part of the problem is Broza’s voice, which isn’t strong enough to compete with such fanciful atmospherics, and although he attempts to strike a pose similar to Loudon Wainwright on many of the selections, more often than not, it just doesn’t work. ½

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Ratings

1 Star:   Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2005 The Music Box