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Dan Zanes exudes the sort of Pied Piper charisma that makes people want to get up and move.

His multi-instrumental (trombone, accordion, fiddle), multi-cultural musical group he calls his Friends (Colin Brooks, John Foti, Sonia de los Santos, Elena Moon Park and Saskia Lane of The Lascivious Biddies) seem as if they just fell in step while Zanes strolled through a city park playing his guitar.

For a guy whose CDs of children's music include cameos by a plethora of artists and who is recognized for heavy video airplay on the television networks Disney and Noggin, the image isn't far from the truth.

"I really believe that ... music is such a good way to bring people together," Zanes says. "I think I have the best job in the world."

Dan Zanes and Friends will perform at 7 p.m. Friday at Greensboro Day School. The performance is part of the Eastern Music Festival's EMFkids concerts.

Zanes is probably remembered by many parents as the front man for 1980s rockers The Del Fuegos. And two things haven't changed: his guitar swagger and his hair. Yep, that hair. It may be grayer, but it's gotten bigger, just like the legions of new fans.

At the height of their popularity in the late '80s, The Del Fuegos developed a following for hits such as "Don't Run Wild" and "I Still Want You." But after marrying, Zanes moved to New York City and settled into fatherhood.

Music is always on his mind, so he started thinking about songs to perform for neighborhood children. He sought his muse in the streets.

"There's a lot of good children's music out there, but I wanted to make updated versions of the music I grew up with, music that I thought was 'all ages' music like Pete Seeger and Lead Belly," he says.

He began performing with other dads he met in the West Village parks where his daughter played. Sensing the need to mix it up, he brought some women into the collaboration.

"I wanted to see if the sound in my head could be done," he says.

The result was a cassette of songs that gained a cult following before capturing the attention of The New York Times Magazine.

"I was being invited to a lot of parties," Zanes says. "I released the cassette as a CD, 'Rocket Ship Beach.' I decided to throw myself into it and make it my path."

Zanes took the party back to his home. He says much of his music and many of his videos are recorded in his New York City apartment.

"I think that's where music lives so comfortably. In people's homes," says Zanes, who calls his music "homemade family music."

Some of music's notables showed up for the party. Loudon Wainwright III and Roseanne Cash on "Family Dance" and Aimee Mann and Lou Reed on "Night Time!" Deborah Harry and Bob Weir appear on the Grammy-nominated aptly named "House Party." And then 2007's "Catch That Train!" won a Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children.

Despite the lightheartedness of Zanes' music, he says it usually has a message.

"I can start talking about issues, whatever's in the air or on my mind, but everything's got to be fun," he says.

For the past couple of years, Zanes' music has focused on immigration issues, a cause he took up after seeing firsthand things happening along the Mexican-American border.

"A certain world and a certain way of life was changing. I ... understand how people are feeling because I grew up in an all-white background in New Hampshire, and I felt it could be looked at in another way," Zanes says. "I wanted to become involved, but I didn't know how."

He started learning Spanish and hanging out with Latinos in New York. He began working with The New Sanctuary Movement, a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and congregations, that respond to grass-roots needs and deportation issues of immigrants.

"It's an easier and more human way for me to look at it," he says, adding that his music is a natural way to bridge diversity because it is the family, particularly children, that is caught in the crossfire of immigration policy.

The result was last year's festive CD, "Nueva York!" and most recently "The Welcome Table: Songs of Inspiration, Mystery and Good Times," a compilation of songs mainly from North American gospel traditions that features The Blind Boys of Alabama and Father Goose, aka, Wayne Rhoden, who frequently performs with the band. A portion of the proceeds of "The Welcome Table" goes to The New Sanctuary Project.

"We've been to London, Australia, Spain and the Middle East," Zanes says. "We see people of all ages and diverse backgrounds singing and dancing together. People say that can't happen, but I'm constantly seeing it happen."

Perhaps Leviticus 19:33-34, a Bible verse included on one of the tracks of "The Welcome Table," says it best: "The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

"Making music is a spiritual pursuit. My band takes that kind of approach, also," Zanes says. "We take having fun very seriously. We all consider ourselves in a position of spreading the word."

Contact Carl Wilson at 373-7145 or carl.wilson@news-record.com