He’s still performing, but Mr. Stinky Feet is dipping his toes into something new
Jim Cosgrove has reached the point in his entertainment career where the children who once enjoyed his silly songs are now bringing their own kids to his shows.
Cosgrove — better known to his core audience as Mr. Stinky Feet — is in his 22nd year as a children’s entertainer. The Rockhurst High School alum and Mission resident has recorded 10 albums and estimates he has done 4,500 live shows in 36 states (including Alaska) as well in Germany, Italy, England, Spain and Mexico.
Having begun his professional life as a journalist, he also formerly wrote a regular family column for The Star as well as a book based on those columns, “Everybody Gets Stinky Feet.”
So, the question is: What took him so long to write his first children’s book?
“I ask myself the same question,” Cosgrove, 55, said.
Turns out Cosgrove simply was busy doing other things. Like recording 10 albums, doing 4,500 shows, etc. Upon deciding to enter the children’s book arena last year, he jumped in full bore.
Cosgrove decided to produce three books, each based on one of his songs. The original idea was to launch the books in time for his summer concert season, so he could hawk the books at his show venues.
Thanks, COVID-19.
“I immediately had 100-plus shows wiped off the books, and it’s been even more since,” he said.
Cosgrove’s performance schedule has been severely limited, but he hasn’t been totally inactive. In addition to performing small, socially distanced in-person shows for almost anybody who requests one, Cosgrove has generated dozens of livestream online shows, including one each Tuesday for the Mid-Continent Library. (See mymcpl.org/stinkyfeet.)
The concerts originate from a previously little-used stage in his basement.
“It’s really cool,” he said. “I really like the different kind of intimacy I have with the audience.”
Cosgrove will present his biggest virtual concert to date in what has become a Black Friday tradition. The 10th annual Bright Light Friday concert, a benefit for Artists Helping the Homeless, will be livestreamed at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 27 on his Mr. Stinky Feet Facebook page. Joining him for the concert, which he bills as “a more chill and family-friendly alternative to the routine post-Thanksgiving bustle,” will be his band, The Hiccups (Mark Thies and Dean Ottinger).
Cosgrove, whose performances are built around interaction with his audiences, says he does family shows, not kids shows. He wants families sitting together, not parents shoving their children up in front of the stage.
His own family has been a major part of his career.
Jeni, his wife, has run the business end of the operation for 16 years. His daughters, Lyda, 16, and Willa, 13, sometimes joined him on stage when they were younger. Although they are no longer members of his core demographic, they are “still good sounding boards. They let me know what’s cool and what’s not.”
Cosgrove said the children’s books, all of which were released in the past four months, play right into his family entertainment theme.
“Families can connect with their kids while reading them, maybe with a kid on the parent’s lap,” he said.
“Bop Bop Dinosaur,” “Sullen Sally” and “Hark! It’s Harold the Angel” were published by Ascend Books, with each featuring Cosgrove’s writing and the work of a different local illustrator. They are available on Cosgrove’s website as well as at area bookstores and many other local merchants.
“‘Bop Bop Dinosaur’ was the first album and really the first song I wrote, so it’s appropriate that it’s the first book,” Cosgrove said.
The “Bop Bop Dinosaur” album came out in 1998 and predated his now-familiar nickname. His second album was titled “Stinky Feet,” which proved to be too catchy to resist for his fans.
“That caught on, and the kids would yell it at me,” Cosgrove said. “I was at a school, and kids in the hall called ‘Stinky Feet, Stinky Feet,’ and I said, ‘Hey, it’s Mr. Stinky Feet. Show some respect.’ That’s more formal.”
Children’s books might not be the only branching out for Mr. Stinky Feet. Cosgrove said his wife has suggested semi-seriously that they start doing bar gigs “as a nostalgia thing” for adults who were his fans as children.
He’s intrigued by the idea but said he wouldn’t suddenly transition to adult music.
“They talked about ‘Mr. Stinky Feet Unplugged’ or ‘Mr. Stinky Feet After Dark,’” he said. “I don’t think so. I would do my usual stuff. If they grew up with me, they know my shtick.”
In any case, Cosgrove figures his singing days are far from over.
“One of the people I admire most in the music business is Pete Seeger,” Cosgrove said. “He brought people together with his music until his fingers got so gnarled he couldn’t play anymore. That was in his 90s. So I think if I can do that, I’ve got a good long career left.”
