Tickets: $15 adv. / $20 at the door. Doors at 8pm. Music at 8:30pm. 21+
Tickets available online here or at Hollerhorn Distilling’s Spirit Room.
You should know that Nellie McKay is hard to categorize. She’s done Brecht on Broadway, opened for Lou Reed at Carnegie Hall, sung Woody Allen movie songs at the Hollywood Bowl, performed on A Prairie Home Companion, duetted with Eartha Kitt and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, played Hilary Swank’s sister on the big screen, paid tribute to Doris Day, and released three wildly acclaimed albums of original music.
Her music is as tuneful and clever as the best of the Great American Songbook—part cabaret, part sparkly pop. But beneath the charming melodic surface is a wit that cuts, and a sharply tuned social conscience.
Home Sweet Mobile Home is McKay's latest and first album of all-original material since 2007's Obligatory Villagers, and features the musical wanderlust, lyrical playfulness and unique point of view that has characterized her music since her breakthrough debut Get Away From Me. Songs from the new project were recently debuted at her NYC engagement at Feinstein's, and The New York Post noted that "songs like ‘Bodega’ and ‘Caribbean Time’… feature a blend of whimsical humor and social commentary that blended in beautifully alongside the Doris Day standards from the Blueberry Pie album.”
The new album, produced by McKay and Robin Pappas, was recorded in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, New York, Jamaica, the Pocono Mountains, and even more than her previous albums, combines diverse musical moods and cultures. Reviewing a recent McKay show, Stephen Holden from The New York Times described her as a “vocal chameleon,” and that varied musical palette is used to great effect on the 13 songs of Home Sweet Mobile Home.
As critic Robert Christgau wrote, Nellie McKay is “ebullient, funny and political. Her future looks brave and free to me.”
Tried and true, special guest, Rich Jenkins arrived on the New York jazz and cabaret scene delivering a style all his own. With a musical career spanning 20 years, Jenkins has covered numerous generes, which have shaped him into a consumate musician and a sophisticated entertainer. Rich Jenkins has an extensive repertoire ranging from Fats Waller’s swinging stride standards of the 30′s to George Benson’s contemporary classics, he covers the music America grew up with and loves. Opening for the likes of Chicago, Steely Dan, and Earth, Wind & Fire, Jenkins has also played blues New York’s Manny’s and Terra Blue, as well as original pieces at the Hampton’s fabled Stephen’s Talkhouse and Philadelphia’s intimate Tin Angel.