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BY MICHAEL GILTZ
ny three-week span out of the year will find New York filled with world-class
musicians playing stages large and small, uptown and downtown, in outer
boroughs and in Manhattan hot spots. But over the next 19 days, an incredible
array of major artists in multiple genres -Scotland's KT Tunstall, Russian-born
Regina Spektor, the country female duo the Wreckers, Grammy winner India.Arie,
singer-songwriter Nellie McKay, and Tony winner Audra McDonald -will descend
on the city. That hum you hear is the whole town getting in the groove.
KT TUNSTALL ~
CD: "Eye to the Telescope"
NEXT UP: "Acoustic Extravaganza,"
due Oct. 17
Performs: Oct. 6 and 7 at Webster Hall
America's first glimpse of the talents of
Scottish singer-songwriter KTTunstall
came when "Amelican Idol" contestant
Katharine McPhee performed Thnstall's
U.K. hit "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"
on her knees in front of millions of view­
ers. It gave McPhee instant credibility and
earned raves from Simon Cowell.
But it was strange for the wom­
an whose song it was, since Tun-
stall dumped her 1V set a few
years ago "because it was melt­
ing my brain." Did she ques­
tion giving her permission
to "Idol"?
"It was a quandary,
definitely," says Tun­
stall. ~It was a really
difficult decision, be­
cause' really don't
like pop reality shows.
But ... at the end of the
day, I would've been a
fool to say no. It got my
song heard by 40 million
people."
In the end, Tunstall, 31,
thought McPhee did a good
job and was happy to have help
winning over America the way
she has the U.K. In Britain, her CD
"Eye to the Telescope" has been a
huge critical and commercial success,
peaking at No.3 and snagging Tun­
stall a Brit Award for Best Female Solo
Artist.
"' started coming out to the States in
fall 2005, doing venues like the Living
Room in New York," says Tunstall. "I
loved it. Then we did Mercury Lounge.
And now we've got a few nights at Web­
ster Hall, U's fantastic . But it's a bloody
massive country."
Not that she's complaining: Tunstall
loves the U.S. She lived in Connecticut
for her senior year of high school and fell
in love with American music, '" was ac­
tually doing a solo tour of coffee shops,"
she says. "I really couldn't face being like
Phoebe from 'Friends'! Because I've sat in
coffee shops and when a girl with a guitar
came in, I've just groaned . I've felt like,
Please don't ruin my scone!"
But now, she says, touring is a dream,
especially with our great. .. tour buses? "Tour buses in the U.S. just kick a­
compared to European ones!" Tun·
stall says with a note of incredillousness.
"American tour buses are so swanky. They
have all" fresheners and carpets!"
What really stops her in her tracks is
how crowds in so many places know the
words to every song on "Telescope." (Her
tune "Miniature Disasters" has been used
on lVs "Grey's Anatomy," and "Suddenly
I See" was in this summer's hit film 'The
Devil Wears Prada.") "It's so bizarre," says
Thnstall. "We went to Annapolis . We didn't
even know there was a place called Annap­
olis. We thought it was a typo. Was it sup­
posed to be Minneapolis? Indianapolis?
But it was an amazing show. It's like, you
close your eyes and you're in your bed­
room playing, then you open your eyes
and there are people from Annapolis in
your room. It's mad!"
THE WRECKERS ~
CD: "Stand Still, Look Pretty"
Perfonn,: Sept. 27 at a benefit at
Crobar for breast-cancer awareness
Michelle Branch had two hit albums
as an indie artist; both had gone
platinum and received strong re­
views. Her close friend Jessica Harp
was just about to record her major-la­
bel debut. But the two women were
drawn to the notion of recording coun­
try music as a duo.
No one else liked the idea.
"There was a lot of pressure from
different people," says the 23-year-old
Branch. "A lot of people weren't hap­
py with this little idea that we had.
Then a couple weeks after finishing
the record, I found out I was preg­
nant [Branch is married to her bass
player, Teddy Landau]. We tried to
keep it a secret as long as possible.
"So we were on Maverick Re­
cords, and , relt like they were gon­
na throw [the CD] out there and if
it didn't stick, they'd move on.·
Turns out, everyone was wrong
-even Branch and Harp themselves , As
the Wreckers, the two have become the
first country duo to hit No.1 with a de­
but single ("Leave the Pieces") since the
mammoth-selling Brooks & Dunn. Now,
their little side-project idea has taken on
a life of its own.
"The people who were the biggest
naysayers are now the biggest a-kiss­
ers. It feels really good it worked out this
wayan a totally selfish level of rubbing AUDRA McDONALD
RON SACHS EPA
it in their faces!" Branch says with a laugh.
"But on another level, we worked really
hard for this and we followed our guts, and
it was a big change for both of us. And for
it to work was pretty miraculous ."
Even though New York doesn't have a
country-music station, it feels like home for
the Arizona native (she and Harp recorded
the CD at a studio in the Meatpacking Dis­
trict). But soon they'll be back on the road,
with Branch's daughter by her side.
"She's a good tour baby," says Branch.
"The only thing I feel guilty about is that
she doesn't see any other children. All she
knows are roadies. It's funny to see'tl\e bi
tattooed, hasn'l-showered- in.weeks guy~
come over and start talking baby talk. ..
.. AUDRA MCOo"
CD: "Build 0 Bridge" ~, '" ,
Performs: Oct. 11 and 12 atLincciln ~'~~
Center's AUen Room
Actress and singer Audra MCDonald ',
says she began acting lessons as a' , •
child to counteract her hyperacti~,;
Clearly, it didn't take. ~~. ,"
She's currently workshopping a revJ.v.w
of"IIO in the Shade," heading to Broa!!!
way in the spring. She appears on pa,sin a
concert next month, around the sam~ (\me
she's filming a 1V-movie version of her re­
vivial of "A Raisin in the Sun" with Sean
Combs (it'll air on ABC next year). On
New Year's Eve, she'll perform on "Live
.. From Lincoln Center." In February, she's
doing a KUrt Weill opera in Los Angeles
co-starring Patti LuPone. And then there's
her recurring role on the new NBC drama
"Kidnapped ."
Oh, and she has an album coming out
Tuesday.
Called "Build a Bridge," the CD is a de­
parture for the performer, who's won Tony
Awards for her work in dramatic produc­
tions like "Raisin" and the moody musical
"Carouse!. " Unlike her eclectic coUection
of theater and art songs. "Bridge" is domi·
nated by pop from the likes of Neil YOung,
Laura Nyro and Elvis CosteUo. Costello's
difficult song to sing," says Mc­
from London, where she's
before heading off
for, well, more work. "We
tease out the right arrange-
It took a long time to find.
absolute desperation of the
it could be about someone
maybe even an atheist; someone
who has no other place to go. They say, All
'right, let me try this thing I don't even be­
lieve in, because I am that desperate .'''
In Neil Young's aching "My Heart," Mc­
Donald hears "some sort of struggle with
addiction " In "It Ain't Easy Bein' Green"
(the Kermit the Frog favorite), it's the
struggle to feel good about yourself. But
lest anyone think McDonald's gifts are Jim­
ited to high drama, she throws in witty gems by John Mayer, Rufus Wainwright
and Nellie McKay.
"All these songs, apart from the one
that's actually from a Broadway show
["Dividing Day: from "The Light in the
Piazza"], sound like they could be in a mu­
sical: McDonald says. "I didn't want to do
all theater music this time. But I'm stiIJ at­
tracted to songs that fill the requirements
for a theater song -they all have an emo­
tionalarc."
.. NELLIE Mc~Y __
CD: "Get Away From Me"
Next Up: "Pretty Little Head" in October
Perfonns: At a benefit concert Oct. 4 at
the ff1ro Balrroom
She hasn't even released h~r second al­
bum yet, but Nellie McKay has had a
storied, crisis-filled career. Her first
CD, "Get Away From Me," is often called
the orJy double-album debut by a woman
in history -and McKay had to fight her
label, Sony, to get it out. Then she and
Sony parted ways over the length of her
second CD, "Pretty Little Head: which
was originally slated for 2005_ While the
album was delayed, McKay starred on
Broadway in "The Threepenny Opera."
"Pretty" is listed on Amazon.com as
coming out Oct. 24, but the real date is
rumored to be Oct. 31. Such confusion is
par for the course for McKay, but Hallow­
een would be appropriate, since the 24-
year-old mixes rock, folk, rap, jazz, cab­
aret, Broadway stylings and everything
else into a bewitchingly original brew.
A member of PETA and a strict veg­
etarian, McKay -born in London but
brought up mostly in the city and in the
Poconos -will be part of a concert at the
Hiro Ballroom co-sponsored by ASPCA
to benefit rescue groups and promote no:
kill animal shelters. The bill also includes
the Beastie Boys. Marshall Crenshaw,
Deborah Harry and MC Chi Chi Valenti. REGINA SPEKTOR f:' -... ,,~~-., ................ "'~ ............. ~--~--
CD: "Begin to Hope"
Performs: Sept. 27 and 28 at Town Hall
A Bronx girl by way of Moscow,
Regina Spektor may have a flashy
Web site and the obligatory MySpace
page, but she has developed as an artist in
a remarkably old-fashioned manner: re­
leasing albums on a smaller label, touring,
doing the requisite press and slowly work­
ing her way up. Now, Sire Records has re­
leased her sixth -and breakthrough­
album, "Begin to Hope."
And like many of the best songwriters ,
Spektor creates tunes that are firmly root­
ed in where she lives. On "That Time: she
sings, "Hey remember that time when 1
found a human tooth on Delancey ?" And
. "Summer in the City" has a line that cer­
tain New Yorkers might embrace: "I'm so
lonely lonely lonely! So 1 went to a protest
just to rub up against strangers ."
Yet it's her song "Fidelity" that stops
the show. Spektor performed it recently
on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien,"
prompting the host to gush, "That was
amazing! That was one of my favorite per­
formances in a long time by anybody! "
Spektor, for her part, smiled shyly. .
But it's the fans seeing her live who can
really smile. On "Fidelity," she delivers
the line" ... and it breaks my heart" with a
catchy sort of stutter, singing the last word
as a plaintive "he-aaaaaaa-rrr-t-t-t." Any­
one singing along to the song on an iPod
would sound silly. Yet with hundreds of
people joining in with Spektor, it'll sound
just right.
INDIA.ARIE ...
CD: "Testimony: Vol. 1, Life &
Relationship" . .. .
Performs: Oct_ 7 at the Beacon
Something happens when India.Arie
sings the song "Private Party" from
her new album. Something sort of ...
intimate.
" 'Private Party' is very sexy to me,"
she says, "because it talks about the fe­
male anatomy and appreciating it, you
know what I mean? The way I feel when I
sing it -I don't know what I do with my
body, but the band is always like, 'Wooh!' I
haven't seen myself [do that]. 1 haven't re­
corded any of the shows. They're always
like, 'Dang, where'd you get that?'"
All that won't come as a surprise to any­
one who's seenArie live. But her first two
CDs were so smart, and so aware
of the world around her, that
people might be forgiven for
thinking that she's always
at political protests wear-"
ing traditional garb.
(She addresses the idea '
in the first single, "I
Am Not My Hair.")
'When I hear a lot
of my earlier music,
I hear a female but
one Jacking a sen­
suality-there's a
lack of ~e.'C\lality in the
sound," says the wom­
an born India Arie Simp­
son and raised in Atlanta.
"I think a lot of people relate to ~,
me in that way. If 1 have on a pair
of jeans, people are like, 'Oh my
God, look at youI' Everybody
wears jeans, but when 1 wear a
pair, it becomes a big deal.
"They say, 'I didn't know you
were curvaceous like that.' My
past two albums had, for lack
of a better word, an asexual
type of energy. I think even though the subject matler [on the new CD]
is not sexual, because it talks about rela­
tionships, it has a more sensual element to
it. And that, to me, is very womanly."
It also talks about heartbreak: Arie was
in a serious relationship, one she thought
was heading toward marriage, that sud­
denly ended, and she says it took three
years to work through the anger and
pain and produce "Testimony" songs like
"There's Hope" and "I Choose," tunes that
embrace forgiveness and self-respect .
She has always had huge success; her
first two CDs have sold 3 million copies,
and Arie has won two Grammys and been
nominated for 12 -but "Testimony" de­
buted at No_ 1, giving Motown Records its
first chart-topper since Diana Ross' "Lady
Sings the Blues" in 1972.
"Yeah, it is satisfying, because I did what
1 wanted to do and it worked," says Arie,
who'll turn 31 four days before her Beacon
show. "That's what really makes it cool.
There were days when 1 was really sad go­
ing over the different events in my mind of
that relationship _ Then to go from crying
on the floor to No.1 on Billboard was a Iile
journey that I will always remember." • .. CD
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