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. Nellie began playing her own songs (and lovingly chosen covers) in clubs in downtown New York City in 2003, soon catching the attention of music writers and a number of record labels–she was a gifted entertainer, an impressive musician, with songs unlike anything people were hearing around town. The Washington Post wrote, “McKay's music evokes the lost elegance of pre-Elvis pop music because she recognizes that such stylishness and wit are worth pursuing. But those goals inevitably collide with the realities of money, sex and politics, and she documents those collisions in her tongue-in-cheek lyrics, emphatic beats and bubbly melodies.” And the Los Angeles Times said that “McKay comes on as a Harlem Holly Golightly, a social activist with a disarming mastery of pop vernacular.” sense," and no less a rock and roller than critic Robert Christgau has written that Nellie McKay is “ebullient, funny and political. Her future looks brave and free to me.” Nellie has a new album, "Home Sweet Mobile Home."