Chicago – Ella Louise Jenkins, the pioneering singer-songwriter known worldwide as the “First Lady of Children’s Music,” died peacefully on November 9, 2024, in Chicago. She was 100. Her death was confirmed by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the label that released all of her nearly 40 albums and regarded her as its best-selling individual artist.
Born on August 6, 1924, in St. Louis, Missouri, Jenkins moved with her family to Chicago’s South Side as a young child. Raised in a working-class African American household, she absorbed the rhythms of playground clapping games, gospel hymns, blues, and the call-and-response energy of Cab Calloway. Without formal musical training, she developed an intuitive gift for rhythm and participation that would define her life’s work.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology (with studies in child psychology and recreation) from San Francisco State University, Jenkins returned to Chicago. She worked with children at community centers and the YWCA, where she began composing original songs designed not merely to entertain but to teach respect, cultural awareness, and self-confidence. In 1957 she signed with Folkways Records. Her debut album, Call-and-Response: Rhythmic Group Singing, introduced the interactive style that became her signature: she sang a line, children answered, and everyone shared ownership of the music.
Over seven decades she recorded landmark albums including the enduring classic You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song (1966)—later inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry—and Multicultural Children’s Songs (1995), still one of Smithsonian Folkways’ most popular releases. Songs such as “Miss Mary Mack,” “Did You Feed My Cow?” and “A Neighborhood Is a Friendly Place” became staples in classrooms and living rooms around the world. She performed on every continent and appeared on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and Barney & Friends.
Her authority was recognized with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in 2017, and designation as a Smithsonian Legacy Honoree. In 2015 the City of Chicago named a park in her honor.
Jenkins never talked down to children. Through experience, expertise, and an unwavering commitment to shared humanity, she transformed children’s music from a marginal genre into a celebration of diversity and collaboration. Her legacy lives on every time a child answers her call: “You’ll sing a song and I’ll sing a song, and we’ll sing a song together.”