Nellie McKay

[Sonik Wiz]

By virtue of a post elsewhere by Clement, I learned of a musician named Nellie McKay. Clement was listening to a surround disc of hers but I had no music so I went to YouTube. In glorious medium fidelity audio I enjoyed a few videos. Hard to say what her style is except eclectic. She plays keyboards, uklele, guitar, writes & sings. She can do jazz lounge standards but also has put out a CD covering Doris Day songs(really) and what hope to hear soon a CD of great 70's music.

There is QQ Poll thread started for her some time ago with only a few votes. Elmer had a great post about actually seeing her live. Cai had the most critical post of her & I might agree with some of what says if I only had music as first exposure. Maybe like Ricki Lee Jones trying too hard. But when see a face & performance with the tunes it makes all the difference.

The 1st vid is an NPR production evidently a series called Tiny Desk Concerts. Sorta like a corona era at home performance except she & her band mates are crowded within a 6 foot square:



The next one is a more standard performance in San Francisco at a venue called The Independent.



I started with a 1st listen to Amonnia Avenue & finished with Nellie. It was like the perfect first date I never had but always wanted.

 

[humprof]

By virtue of a post elsewhere by Clement, I learned of a musician named Nellie McKay. Clement was listening to a surround disc of hers but I had no music so I went to YouTube. In glorious medium fidelity audio I enjoyed a few videos. Hard to say what her style is except eclectic. She plays keyboards, uklele, guitar, writes & sings. She can do jazz lounge standards but also has put out a CD covering Doris Day songs(really) and what hope to hear soon a CD of great 70's music.

There is QQ Poll thread started for her some time ago with only a few votes. Elmer had a great post about actually seeing her live. Cai had the most critical post of her & I might agree with some of what says if I only had music as first exposure. Maybe like Ricki Lee Jones trying too hard. But when see a face & performance with the tunes it makes all the difference.

The 1st vid is an NPR production evidently a series called Tiny Desk Concerts. Sorta like a corona era at home performance except she & her band mates are crowded within a 6 foot square:



The next one is a more standard performance in San Francisco at a venue called The Independent.



I started with a 1st listen to Amonnia Avenue & finished with Nellie. It was like the perfect first date I never had but always wanted.

I lurv me some Nellie McKay. You can Google as well as I can, but here are a couple of my favorite profiles of her, both by Nate Chinen:

• Jazz Times
• New York Times

And here's an interview (from Mix magazine) with Geoff Emerick about working on Get Away From Me. QQ's own @Steve G assisted with the original stereo mix, and in this profile/interview from Sound and Vision McKay comments briefly on working with Thom Cadley on the 5.1.

 

[Beefalo]

I started with a 1st listen to Amonnia Avenue & finished with Nellie. It was like the perfect first date I never had but always wanted.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I lurv me some Nellie McKay. You can Google as well as I can, but here are a couple of my favorite profiles of her, both by Nate Chinen:

• Jazz Times
• New York Times

And here's an interview (from Mix magazine) with Geoff Emerick about working on Get Away From Me. QQ's own @Steve G assisted with the original stereo mix, and in this profile/interview from Sound and Vision McKay comments briefly on working with Thom Cadley on the 5.1.

Thanks! All I had on her was Wikipedia. Those were very interesting articles.

 

[elmer]

I was going to wax poetic on this and then realized that I had already done so more than a few years ago on the original poll. FWIW;

I just picked this up today - "used" @ FYE for $9.99 ("not really used"). This one brings me back a bit - I first saw Nelly performing at an underground club in the Village (NYC) called the Fez. And when I say underground - it was 2 stories below street level - an old speakeasy - when the #6 subway train came rolling by, the entertainment had to pause until it passed. But I digress...Nelly was and still is a square peg. Even at the age of 20, she dressed like someone out of an old Ross Hunter 50's melodrama and in the blink of an eye could go from a Doris Day style torch song to throwing down (quite capably I might add) with the local street rappers she would invite onstage. She was definitely a stage brat and her smart-alecky, New Yorker attitude was worn with more than a little bit of ironic pride. She signed with Sony shortly after I first saw her, and at the time she was being groomed to be their Norah Jones (the album's name is a small swipe at Norah's "Come Away With Me") - complete with the big coming out party at SXSW in Austin, big ad campaign, etc - problem was, although Nelly was only 20 or so at the time - she had her own plan, and was not to be made over in anyone's likeness. She clashed brutally with the honchos at Sony and eventually was let go to make music on her own and in her own unique way. She put out a lovely Doris Day tribute album a year or so ago - and if that's your cup o' tea - you should check it out.

This album is kind of Nelly learning how to use a recording studio - remarkably enough, under the tutelage of long time Beatle's engineer Geoff Emerick - who co-produced and engineered the album ( a 2 CD set!) - not a bad pedigree for a debut album! She is a talented, multi - instrumentalist and plays and sings pretty much every keyboard (piano, vibes, synths, glockenspiel, vibes, etc) and vocal part on the album. This album definitely has one foot firmly planted in the Broadway/cabaret/singer-songwriter mode and adds contemporary jazz/rock touches when needed - perhaps an acquired taste, but a rewarding one nonetheless.

This DualDisc came out just as SonyBMG was starting to promote the doomed format - it even comes in the dreaded "push button" jewel case which was designed specifically for Dual Disc - but was so expensive and hard to manufacture in any quantity, hat it died even before DualDisc did. As Nelly was a "priority new artist" and DualDisc was the new thang of the moment, the album was released again (about 6 months later) in this format - not what you would call a likely candidate for the surround treatment, but as others here have noted, an excellent and discrete mix - albeit in DD 5.1 only. It also includes a live concert from SF featuring Nelly in her more natural setting. If you can find a copy of this, it is a worthwhile venture IMO. I'll give it a 9.