Primary Instrument: Piano
Since her audacious double”album debut Get Away From Me, Nellie McKay has been a creative dynamo, releasing Pretty Little Head and Obligatory Villagers, making her Broadway debut (as Polly Peachum in The Threepenny Opera), performing onscreen (in PS I Love You) and currently writing music and lyrics for the premiere production of Election: The Musical.
Since her emergence on the scene, McKay has been known as an outspoken and fierce advocate for animal rights, feminism, civil rights and other deeply felt progressive ideals. But at first glance the choice of material on Normal as Blueberry Pie is devoid of pointed statements. However, as McKay notes, “There are so many ways to be an advocate.” And while the messages are subtle, they’re certainly present. “The people most in need of Doris Day are the cynics,” McKay observes. “She’s such a breath of fresh air.”
McKay also scoffs at the notion that offering an album of faithfully rendered selections from the Great American Songbook means that she’s lost her edge. There’s nothing wrong with beauty, she asserts.
“I’d love it to be a kind of lullaby,” she says. “I don’t mind if people fall asleep to this record because it’s very hard to fall asleep sometimes. We’re so over”stimulated. You don’t want to have to work yourself to exhaustion. You don’t want to have to take some pharmaceutical. Why not listen to some music and relax?”
”Ms. McKay, whose voice is blithe and supple, is a Doris Day fan, but a knowing one, well aware of the distance from Ms. Day’s era to ours. There’s yearning, wryness, and ingenuity in her arrangements.” ” Jon Pareles, The New York Times
”Thanks to (McKay), the Great American Songbook has a living, breathing present as well as a glorious past.” ” Joan Anderman, The Boston Globe
Normal as Blueberry Pie
Verve Records
2009
Tracks: The Very Thought of You; Do Do Do; Wonderful Guy; Meditation; Mean to Me; Crazy Rhythm; Sentimental Journey; If I Ever Had a Dream; Black Hills of Dakota; Dig It; Send Me No Flowers; Close Your Eyes; I Remember You.
Personnel: Nellie McKay: vocals, piano, organ, ukulele, synthesizer, mellotron, bells, tympani, tambura; Bob Dorough: piano; Jay Berliner: guitar; Jay Anderson: bass; Clarence Penn: drums; Charles Pillow: tenor saxophone, oboe; Glenn Drewes: trumpet; John Allred: trombone; Lawrence Feldman: clarinet, flute; David Weiss: flute; Sharon Moe: French horn; Cenovia Cummins: violin; Paolo Perrre, Kevin Rennard, Lucas Steele: vocals.
Obligatory Villagers
Hungry Mouse Records
2007
Pretty Little Head
Black Dove
2005
Get Away From Me
Sony
2004
Other
P.S. I Love You (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
Various artists
Atlantic Records
2007
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