Singer-pianist-actor-songwriter Nellie McKay is a kitten with a whip, which she cracks at any sign of cruelty against kittens, cows, donkeys, humans, or any other mammal.
Still in her midtwenties, McKay recently released her fourth album, Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day. On this warm and loving shout-out from one fabulous blonde animal-rights activist to another, McKay channels Day’s bright-eyed optimism without a trace of corn. Covering a dozen standards Day made her own during the fifties and early sixties, McKay sounds older, wiser, and nearly even hipper than on her highly lauded and ridiculously clever 2004 debut, Get Away From Me (a response to Norah Jones’s then hit album, Stay With Me). Pretty Little Head and Obligatory Villagers contined McKay’s quest for a blithe jazz-pop sound that was both vintage and contemporary, timeless and topical.
Like Day, McKay initially comes off as a something of a disarmingly charming ditz. She tends to arrive onstage grasping a handful of disorganized sheets of music, which she delves into as the whim strikes her. Currently on tour with her group, the Aristocrats, McKay used to be known for halting shows nearly midsong to hand out animal-rights flyers to the audience. As she indicates below, however, McKay’s been gradually shifting her focus back to music while still remaining deeply engaged in interrelated causes.
HeadCount: Who are your activist heroes? Who do you emulate as a social activist?
McKay: New York City Council member Tony Avella. He won’t even take a free parking pass. I’ve worked with Avella; he’s at every rally for every cause I support, he always shows up, he’s always speaking the truth to power. And that’s why he’s considered a joke. But he shouldn’t be. They always have to marginalize people who are actually fighting for something.

You always seem to be in the trenches for various causes, such as animal rights or protesting Columbia University expansion. How did you get into the activist groove?
McKay: I don’t know, and I’m not sure it’s always the wisest thing. When my mother was in England, she ran into Vanessa Redgrave handing out flyers for the Workers Party and she thought, “Why aren’t you making a movie?” You can reach many more people by making a movie or, in my case, writing a song than by standing on some street corner. I mean, it’s good to have a hand in the trenches, but I’ve probably focused too much energy on going to protests rather than doing music work.
Do you feel your music reaches the audience and has the effect you’d like it to have as social commentary?
McKay: No, it doesn’t. I don’t really know what does. Laura Bush’s favorite musician is Bob Dylan you know, so what does that add up to? She obviously isn’t listening very closely. So it’s very easy to give up. Read the rest of this entry »