The first volume of CHM Records' four-CD series
Hushabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Country Music Favorites may have been intended for the youngest of new parents as well as the youngest of children because the selections come from the country music charts of the several years before the release date, the period 2004-2007. Mike Baiardi is credited with having produced, performed, and arranged the music, which he also mastered. Baiardi's approach is to present appropriately calm instrumental arrangements of the songs originally performed by such stars as
Kenny Chesney,
Rascal Flatts, and
Keith Urban in which acoustic guitars and other country instruments provide the backing for lead melodies played on celeste or xylophone (and possibly kalimba and toy piano). Those melody lines often sound like what one might hear in a nursery anyway, and while infants won't recognize the tunes, their country music-loving parents certainly will. ~ William Ruhlmann