Renee & Jeremy

Both singer-songwriters, Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback were friends who'd played around Los Angeles for years -- Renee as a solo artist, Jeremy both solo and as a member of the band Brad. When Renee found herself pregnant, she decided to record an album of lullabies for her daughter, and Jeremy suggested she cover a song he'd written but never recorded for his son, "Welcome to the World." Before long the two were collaborating on an entire album, which became It's a Big World, one of 2007's sweetest kids' releases and a breath of fresh air for adults searching for kids' music they could not only tolerate but actually enjoy. In 2009, the duo released C'mon, a comparatively more up-tempo album that still drew on their influences, which include Nick Drake and Aimee Mann.