Ella Jenkins,
a self-taught musician who defied her industry’s norms by recording and performing solely for children,
-- and in doing so transformed a marginal and moralistic genre into a celebration of a diverse yet common humanity with songs like “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song,”
-- died on Saturday in Chicago. She was 100.

Her death was confirmed by John Smith, associate director at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Ms. Jenkins had no formal musical training, but she had an innate sense of rhythm.
“I was always humming or singing and la-la, lu-lu or something,” she once said.

She absorbed the everyday melodies of her childhood
— the playground clapping games, the high school sports chants, the calls of a sidewalk watermelon vendor hawking his produce.

As an adult, she paired such singsong rhythms with original compositions
and sought not simply to amuse or distract children but also to teach them to respect themselves and others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/obituaries/ella-jenkins-dead.html