KT Tunstall Wreckers Audra McDonald India Arie

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• E a u vi " '" ~ ro ~ "ft ,1."'.1.;,',,·>,', ..;,,··1 . ----------' I' l .. , .. ' ., -. . . 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 lIT 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 lIT Tunstall came when "American Idol" contestant Katharine McPhee perfonned Tunstall's U.K. hit "Black Horse and the ChenyTree" on her knees in front of millions of view ers. It gave McPhee instant credibility and earned raves from Sinton Cowell. But it was strange for the worn· an whose song it was, since Tun- stall dumped her lV set a few years ago "because it was melt ing my brain," Did sbe ques tion giving her permission to "ldol"? "Tour buses in the U.S_ just kick a compared to European ones!" Tun- stall says with a note of incredulousness . "American tour buses are so swanky. They have air 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 1V's "Grey's Anatomy," and "Suddenly I See" was in this summer's hit film "The Devil Wears Prada.") "It's so bizarre," says Tunstall. ''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 Ann3.polis in your room. It's mad!" THE WRECKERS ~ RON SACHS it in their faces!" Branch says with a lau "But on another level, we worked really hard for this and we followed our guts, ; it was a big change for both of us. And f it to work was pretty miraculous ." Even though New York doesn't have; country-music station, it feels like home the Arizona native (she and Harp recol'( the CD at a studio in the Meatpacking lJ trict). But soon they'll be back on the rOl with Branch's daughter by her side. "It was a quandaIy , definitely ," says Tun stall. "It was a really difficiilt decision, be cause 1 really don't "She's a good tour baby," says Brand "The only thing 1 feel guilty about is tha she doesn't see any other children. All s CD: ·Stand Still. Look Pretty" knows are roadies. It's funny to se'e'Ule Perform: Sept 27 ata benefit at tattooed, basn'\-showered-in-weeks iU: like pop reality shows. But ... at the end of the day, 1 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. "I started coming out to the States in faJl2005, doing venues like the living Room in New York," says Tunstall. "1 loved it. Then we did Mercury Lounge. And now we've got a few nights at Web ster Hall. It'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. "I 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? L...Oo __ ba_T_fo_T_h_T_e_QS_t_,.can_,_ce_r_a_w_QT_e"_e5S __ ...I j come over and start talking baby \all<. • 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 rec.ord, 1 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 1 felt 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. I 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 worke<! out this way on a totally selfish level of rubbing .A AUDRA MCOo" CD: ~ulld a Bridge· ~ • Performs: Oct. 11 and 12 at Lincoln' Center's Allen Room Actress and singer Audra McDona\( says she began acting lessons as a' child to counteract her hyperaf:tivit Clearly, it didn't take. i" She's currently workshopping a revj' of" liD in the Shade," beading to Broall way in the spring. She appears on Pas· concert next month, around the sam~ t'l she's filming a lV-movie version of her vivial of "A Raisin in the Sun" with Seru Combs (it'll air on ABC next year). On New Year's Eve, she'll perform on "liVE • From lincoln Center." In February, she' doing a Kurt Weill opera in Los Angele, co-starring Patti LuPone. And then thel her recurring role on the new NBC drru "Kidnapped," Oh, and she has an album coming at Tuesday, Called "Build a Bridge," the CD is a c parture for the performer, who's won ~ Awards for her work in dramatic produ , tions like "Raisin" and the moody musi. ·Carouse!. " Unlike her eclectic collecti( of theater and art songs, "Bridge" is dOl nated by pop from the likes of Neil Villi Laura Nyro and Elvis Costello, Costello difficult song to sing," says Mc from London, where she's before heading off for, well, more work. "We tease out the right arrange m!~,f?l~~ : 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 heal'S "some sort of struggle with addiction." In "It Ain't Easy Bein' Green" (the Kennit the Frog favorite), it's the struggle to feel good about yourself. But lest anyone think McDonald's gifts are lim· 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 Ught in the Piazza1, 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 still at . tracted to songs that fill the requirements for a theater song -they all have an emo tional arc." 1-. .:...:..;.N=E::;:L=LI:..=E:..:M~c.;;.;KA:...=....;:Y.:.-_. _ CD: -Get Away From Me" Ned Up: "Pretty Little Head" in October Performs: At a benefit concert Oct 4 at the Hiro Balrroom She hasn't even released hl!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 o)lly 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 Uttle 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 r < .. ".''''''' .... ~, • .-.~---- .......... - - ..... ---- .. 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 I . 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 , 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 V CD: "Testimony : Vol. I, Life & RelatioJlShip" Porforms: Oct 7 at U,e Beacon S omerhing happens when IndiaArie sings t.he song" Privale Party" from her new album. SomeLhing 5011 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' feel when 1 sing it -, don't know what! do with my body, but the band is always like, 'Wooh!' I haven't seen myself [do that].' 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 seen Arie 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. "\ Am Not My Hair.") "When I hear a lot of my earlier mUSIC, I hear a female but one lacking a sen suality-there's a lack of sexuality in the sOW'ld," ays the worn· " an born India Me Simp-"", son and raised in Atlanta. " "I think a lot of people relate to -, me in that way. If I have on a pair of jeans, people are like, 'Oh my God, look at you!' Everybod y wears jeans, but when' 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 matter Ion 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 '" 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. I, giving Motown Records its first chart -topper since Diana Ross' "Lady Sings the Blues" in 1972. "Yeah, it is satisfying, because I did what I 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 life journey that I will always remember ." • ~ • III c: z ~ z ~ ::l Ci Be '< ::l (J) " <ft n 0 3 c » e: z '" ::l: VI (f> C ::l Cl. Cl ':< (f> ct> ~ 3 cr ~ tv ." tv 0 0 0)

KT Tunstall Wreckers Audra McDonald India Arie

📄 KT Tunstall Wreckers Audra McDonald India Arie

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