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• In Praise of Podcasts - Cornell University The Cornell Daily Sun

  In Praise of Podcasts Cornell University The Cornell Daily Sun It is by way of these podcasts that I discovered Nellie McKay was releasing a Doris Day Tribute, what songs were deemed most important of the decade, ...

• McKay, Cumming, Jones, Pascal et al. Play Feinstein's in June - Broadway World

  McKay, Cumming, Jones, Pascal et al. Play Feinstein's in June Broadway World Nellie McKay will be appearing from June 1st to the 12th. Tony Award winner Alan Cumming, McKay's co-star in The Threepenny Opera, will play Feinstein's ... Cumming, Noll, Butler, Pascal and More to Play Feinstein'sPlaybill.com all 2 news articles »

• Alan Cumming, LaKisha Jones, Aaron Lazar, Nellie McKay, Adam Pascal to Play ... - TheaterMania.com

  TheaterMania.com

  Alan Cumming, LaKisha Jones, Aaron Lazar, Nellie McKay, Adam Pascal to Play ... TheaterMania.com Headlining the room will be singer-songwriter Nellie McKay (June 1-12) and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming (June 15-26). Also appearing will be American Idol ...

• Nellie McKay played Doris Day at The Allen Room (pics), taking residency at ... - Brooklyn Vegan (blog)

  Brooklyn Vegan (blog)

  Nellie McKay played Doris Day at The Allen Room (pics), taking residency at ... Brooklyn Vegan (blog) NY MAG Dressed in a red & black strapless gown, Nellie McKay performed to a sold-out crowd at the Allen Room in Lincoln Center as part of their "American ...

• McKay merrily mixes scrappy and wry - Boston Globe

  Boston Globe

  McKay merrily mixes scrappy and wry Boston Globe Nellie McKay was probably the only pop singer in town this past weekend who dedicated a song to Mary Daly and Howard Zinn. ...

• Nellie McKay on channeling Doris Day's sunshine. - New York Magazine

  New York Magazine

  Nellie McKay on channeling Doris Day's sunshine. New York Magazine It's hard to know what to make of Nellie McKay. Is she the retro-demure balladeer of Normal As Blueberry Pie, her recent Doris Day tribute ...

• iPod Shuffle - Boston Globe

  Boston Globe

  iPod Shuffle Boston Globe ... album may be called ?Normal as Blueberry Pie,'' but the contents of singer-songwriter-actress-activist Nellie McKay's iPod are anything but ordinary. ...

• Normal As Blueberry Pie - A Tribute To Doris Day - All About Jazz

  All About Jazz

  Normal As Blueberry Pie - A Tribute To Doris Day All About Jazz Listening to Normal As Blueberry Pie, one might say Nellie McKay is not a traditional jazz singer, whatever that is. ...

• MJ Andersen: Back in the day, it was all about Doris - Providence Journal

  Providence Journal

  MJ Andersen: Back in the day, it was all about Doris Providence Journal Here was a new album by Nellie McKay, ?As Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day.? This dewy young vocalist had missed Day's heyday by a mile. ...

• Ann Powers: Less Ellen, more guitars - Los Angeles Times

  Ann Powers: Less Ellen, more guitars Los Angeles Times Nellie McKay should by flattered by the approach taken by the jazz-punkette Lilly Scott (she sang the jazz standard "Lullaby of Birdland," of all things!). ... and more »

Nellie McKay extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Nellie McKay
Background information
Birth name	Nell Marie McKay
Born	London, England
Origin	Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
Genres	Rock, pop, jazz
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	vocals, piano, ukulele, cello, xylophone, glockenspiel
Years active	2002-present
Labels	Columbia Records 2002-2006 Vanguard Records2006-2009 Verve Records2009-present
Website	nelliemckay.com

Nellie McKay (born Nell Marie McKay on 13 April 1982^{note 1} ) is an English-born American singer-songwriter, actress, and former stand-up comedienne, noted for her critically acclaimed debut album Get Away from Me and for her Broadway debut in The Threepenny Opera (2006), for which she won a Theatre World Award.

Her music has showcased different genres, from jazz to rap and disco to funk. Her eclectic style and sharp lyrics distinguish her as an original voice. Her songs sometimes have a political tinge; she is a vocal feminist, and wrote a satirical song relating to feminist issues called "Mother of Pearl". McKay also "is a proud member of PETA" (album notes), wrote a song ("Columbia Is Bleeding") dealing with the issue of Columbia University's cruelty to animals, and ("John John") about her feelings in favor of political candidate Ralph Nader as well as performing concerts as benefits for WBAI.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 2004 2.1.1 First album production 2.1.2 Early acclaim 2.2 2005 2.2.1 Second album postponement 2.2.2 Split with Columbia/Sony 2.3 2006 2.3.1 Second album release 2.3.2 The Threepenny Opera 2.4 2007 2.4.1 Four Scored 2.4.2 P.S. I Love You 2.4.3 Third album 2.5 2009 2.5.1 Fourth album 2.5.2 Other work 3 Discography 3.1 Albums 3.2 Soundtracks and covers 3.3 Other songs 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

Early life

McKay (pronounced /məˈkaɪ/ "McEYE") was born in London, England to a Scottish writer/director, Malcolm McKay, and an American actress, Robin Pappas. At the age of two, after her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to New York City, where they stayed until 1994. After one year in Olympia, Washington, the two returned east and lived in the Poconos, where McKay spent her high-school years. In 2000, Nellie McKay graduated from Pocono Mountain Senior High School.

In 2000, McKay started attending the Manhattan School of Music. (In fact, she wrote the first song in her debut album, "David" about David Eisenbach, one of her teachers from the school.) After about two years of attending the university, she dropped out. She started performing as a stand-up comic in Manhattan clubs, and eventually Greenwich Village's gay bars.

In February 2003 McKay opened for the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at Tonic, on New York's Lower East Side. Jay Ruttenberg, from Time Out New York magazine, attended the show and wrote a prominent feature on McKay. Shortly afterwards, several record labels contacted her and started a bidding war. She eventually signed with Columbia/Sony and started producing her first record in the late summer of 2003.

Career

2004

First album production

Get Away from Me was McKay's first album. It was produced by The Beatles sound engineer Geoff Emerick and released by Columbia/Sony Records in February 2004. The title is a play on Norah Jones' Come Away with Me.¹ McKay is said to be the first woman to release a double album as her first release. Originally, her contract with Columbia called for 13 songs, but McKay aggressively lobbied her label for a double album, including bottles of wine, a PowerPoint slideshow, and a mock photo of her threatening Emerick with a gun. The studio agreed, but McKay had to underwrite production costs of the five additional tracks with $25,000 of her own money. Although all the music would fit on a single disc, McKay insisted on a double disc debut to "reclaim the feeling of flipping over a record" (Allmusic).

Early acclaim

McKay was one of the major breakout artists from the 2004 SXSW Festival and was a finalist in the 2004 Shortlist Music Prize, and Get Away from Me was on several "Best of 2004" lists. She toured amphitheaters across the northern United States in July 2004 as an opening act on the first half of the Au Naturale tour co-headlined by Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladies.

2005

Second album postponement

Pretty Little Head, which features duets with k.d. lang and Cyndi Lauper, was originally slated for an 18 October 2005 release on Columbia/Sony. Columbia/Sony announced a postponement of the release to 27 December 2005; and then again to 3 January 2006.

McKay wanted the full 65 minute, 23 track version of Pretty Little Head to be released, but Columbia was only willing to support a 16-track version that ran 48 minutes. Columbia/Sony was so adamant about the abbreviated version that it sent copies of this version out as promotional copies to critics. Executives at Columbia insist that McKay understood the label wanted an album consisting of 15 or 16 songs. They further claim that the version that was sent out was a mastered sequence that McKay herself submitted to the label.

Split with Columbia/Sony

McKay expressed her concern at a concert in West Hollywood, 29 November 2005, at the Troubadour, going so far as to distribute the personal e-mail address of Columbia CEO Will Botwin at the performance. As a result of this, Botwin agreed to the 23 track release but was fired by Columbia before he could make good on the agreement.² McKay was subsequently dropped from the Columbia/Sony artist roster. She claims it was 'probably best for everyone.'

Before splitting with Sony, McKay had written and recorded several songs for the motion picture Rumor Has It.... The songs were eventually released on the iTunes Store on 27 December 2005.³

2006

Second album release

Initial reports stated that McKay would release Pretty Little Head on the Internet sometime in January, with a conventional release as early as February; however, this did not come to pass. Her record label troubles were documented in the March 2006 issue of Wired magazine. The article also mentioned the (illegal) availability of the full-length album in MP3 format on the internet. Similarly, the music chain HMV Canada promoted Pretty Little Head as having a Canadian issue date of 7 February 2006, but no release occurred^{citation needed}.

After nearly nine months of ironing out the legalities between labels, Pretty Little Head was released in the United States on 31 October 2006 on McKay's own label, Hungry Mouse, and was marketed by SpinART Records.⁴ Like its predecessor, the album was divided in two discs and included a 44-page color booklet. The album included the intended 23 tracks as originally planned.⁵ Release of the album in other countries, including Canada, was delayed until 21 November 2006.

After SpinART declared bankruptcy in 2007, Pretty Little Head was released by Sony in its original, 23-track 2-CD version, effectively bringing the album back to Columbia.

The Threepenny Opera

McKay made her Broadway debut as Polly Peachum in the Roundabout Theatre Company's limited-run production of The Threepenny Opera, co-starring with Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper. The role earned her a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance.

2007

Four Scored

On 1 February 2007, McKay joined Laurie Anderson, Joan Osborne, Suzanne Vega and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra for Four Scored, a single performance of reworked songs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.⁶⁷

P.S. I Love You

In 2007, McKay also played the role of Ciara in P.S. I Love You, a film directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler.

Third album

McKay's third full-length studio release debuted on 25 September 2007.⁸ With both of her previous albums lasting over 60 minutes and spanning two discs each, Obligatory Villagers, with only nine tracks (ten if purchased from iTunes), totalling just about 30 minutes was her shortest release to date.⁹ Reviews were generally positive,⁹¹⁰ though some fans felt the album's new direction didn't have the same bite and wit that McKay's previous outings had provided.¹¹. The album was produced on Nellie's own label, Hungry Mouse, and released by Vanguard Records.

2009

Fourth album

On October 13, 2009, she released her fourth studio album, Normal as Blueberry Pie - A Tribute to Doris Day on Verve Records. The album contains twelve covers of songs made famous by Day, as well as one original tune. Barnes and Noble booksellers feature an exclusive edition, packaged with the bonus track "I Want To Be Happy." iTunes also features an exclusive edition with a different bonus track, "I'll Never Smile Again."

Other work

	"Take Me Away" (2007) 30 second sample of Nellie McKay's Christmas song "Take Me Away".
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

McKay has been performing some new material at her recent concerts. One of these songs is called "The In Crowd."¹² McKay has also written two new Christmas-themed songs, "A Christmas Dirge" and "Take Me Away," both of which are available on her web site.

Other projects McKay has been reported to be working on include a musical film now in pre-production called The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom based on a graphic novel by Katherine Arnoldi and an original musical about a tenant's organization.¹³

Discography

Albums

• 2004: Get Away from Me
• 2006: Pretty Little Head
• 2007: Obligatory Villagers
• 2009: Normal as Blueberry Pie - A Tribute to Doris Day

Soundtracks and covers

• 2005: Rumor Has It... soundtrack (iTunes exclusive)
• 2005: Monster-in-Law soundtrack
• 2005: Weeds : Music From the Original Series soundtrack
• 2005: This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul
• 2007: P.S. I Love You soundtrack

Other songs

• "The In Crowd"
• "John-John"
• "Teresa"
• "Take Me Away"
• "A Christmas Dirge"
• "The Cavendish"¹⁴
• "Goodbye"

Notes

References

External links

• Nellie McKay - Official Website
• Nellie McKay at the Internet Movie Database
• Trouser Press entry