Singer was part of ‘magical’ trio
Lois Lilienstein had many young fans
Raffi Cavoukian was new to the “scene” in the mid-1970s, and he admits he didn’t really get it. He was a long-haired folksinger and he was maybe a little too stiff and maybe a little too serious, and in need of some friendly advice when he first started performing for young children in Torontoarea schools.
Lois Lilienstein was the person to give it to him.
“Lois was the veteran of the scene,” Cavoukian says. “She would say how children loved movement, that it was all about the movement.’
Lois Lilienstein taught Raffi Cavoukian, a.k.a. Raffi, the Hokey Pokey and, as one-third of the child-entertaining super group, Sharon, Lois & Bram, she introduced legions of Canadian kids to Fish and Chips and Vinegar, Peanut Butter, Little Tommy Tinker and Skinnamarink.
Lilienstein died Wednesday at her home in Toronto six months after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She was 78.
“She died very peacefully and not in pain,” her son, David Lilienstein, told The Canadian Press Thursday, recalling a childhood infused by his mother’s enthusiastic spirit.
Sharon Hampson, who still tours with Bram Morrison described her friend as a “woman of many ideas” who would do “anything” for her audience.
Individually, they were good. But as a group, the three-time Juno Award-winning trio hit upon greatness. Their first album, One Elephant, Deux Elephants, was released in 1978. The album went on to become one of the fastest selling children’s records in Canadian history.
Television fame among the preschool crowd followed with The Elephant Show, a CBC series that ran from 1984 to 1989.
Toronto city councillor Josh Matlow became friendly with Lilienstein in recent years as he worked to have a playground named in Sharon, Lois and Bram’s honour. He also happens to be 39.
“Like countless children around the world, Lois’ music, with Sharon and Bram, was part of the magic of my childhood,” he says. “Many of us around a similar age can sing all their songs — word for word — still.”