Nellie McKay's album tribute to Doris Day anything but "Normal"

Two years ago Nellie McKay showed another facet of her extraordinary talent when she wrote a scholarly review for The New York Times Sunday Book Review of a book evaluating Doris Day’s career. She offers her own evaluation of Day on her new album Normal As Blueberry Pie—A Tribute to Doris Day.

“Doris Day is an emblem of sunshine, communion with nature and animals, and common civility,” she wrote in the Times, adding dimension to Day’s “normal” girl-next-door screen image. “In a time when cynicism rules, her eager humanity is ever more precious.”

And “there’s still so much to discover about her musically,” McKay (pronounced "Mc-EYE") adds now in discussing Normal As Blueberry Pie. “She seems kind of like a hidden treasure, and regarding her animal activism I’m so glad she used her success for something wonderful.”

McKay, of course, is herself a celebrated animal activist (she received the Humane Society’s Doris Day Music Award in 2005 for “The Dog Song,” from her acclaimed 2004 debut album Get Away From Me, and afterwards interviewed the reclusive Day for dog magazine Bark). She recalls picking up Day’s It’s Magic compilation album when she was participating in an aquarium protest in Baltimore, but she listened to Day’s albums when she was growing up—along with tons of other formative recordings that have made her discs so incredibly diverse.

She also loved Day movies including Young Man With A Horn (1950), which featured Harry James’ trumpet playing in a drama based on the life of jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke.

“In her autobiography she details the big band days and makes them seem so glamorous,” says McKay, though she gives “The Very Thought Of You”—the Ray Noble standard that opens Normal As Blueberry Pie—a very different treatment than that performed by Day and James in Young Man With A Horn. Instead of Noble’s big band horn solo, McKay starts her version with minimal percussion and dreamy vibes-like chording, then provides a languid vocal subtly backed by her own piano, organ, bells and tambura play.

“I didn’t want to make a poor copy of the original!” she explains. “Sometimes you like an original and want to keep your version like that—but there’s always that danger when you do.”

McKay likewise couches her contemplative take on the Antonio Carlos Jobim/Norman Gimbel classic “Meditation” in her soft ukulele plucking, with only a gentle horn and flute gracing the break—another marked contrast with Day’s fuller, string-driven bossa nova original.

“She just has this gorgeous voice—and I’m very used to hiding behind a piano or other instrumentation,” says McKay. “So it’s a little daunting to be out there in front vocally. But it’s nice to sing such beautiful songs, especially some that are less well-known and shouldn’t be—like ‘Black Hills Of Dakota.’”

McKay chose her self-produced album’s 12 covers from over 600 Day recordings.

“I wanted to reflect the variety of the music Miss Day recorded—which was extremely diverse stylistically for the time period,” notes McKay, who also wrote one original in “If I Ever Had A Dream”—which fits right in with the time frame in sounding like a Day outtake. Indeed, McKay relishes the chance to step back from her prolific and often politically-charged compositions.

“I like being someone else for awhile—and Doris Day is the most fabulous person to be!” concludes McKay, who is selectively touring in support of Normal As Blueberry Pie. She has a Feb. 18, 2010 date scheduled at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, where she delightfully urged attendees at an listening party last month to buy Day’s albums instead of her own loving tribute.

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