SONGS TO GROW ON Illustrations by David Stone Martin

SONGS TO GROW ON, a collection of American folk songs for kids, assembled by Beatrice Landeck, is a great book, full of classics with wonderful illustrations by David Stone Martin. It's copyright 1950 by the Edward B. Marks Music Corporation, William Sloane Associates, Publishers. I came across a well used fourth edition at a charity shop in Vermont.

David Stone Martin (1913 - 1992) took night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the 1950s, he moved to be near New York City and was creating LP album covers for hundreds jazz artists for Mercury, Dial, Disc and other record labels. A lot of these assignments originated from his friend, the record producer Norman Granz. Mr. Martin's illustrations also appeared in the leading magazines of the 1950s and 60s, The Saturday Evening Post and Seventeen Magazine and others. His work can be seen in MOMA, the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.