<\/p>\n
Singer-songwriter, musician and actor Nellie McKay joined host Kenneth Womack to discuss going from growing up with The Beatles<\/a>\u2019 music to working with their recording engineer and much more on \u201cEverything Fab Four<\/a>,\u201d a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.<\/p>\n As timing would have it, McKay will also be joining us in conversation with Womack and for a musical performance at the inaugural \u201cEverything Fab Four\u201d Fest<\/a> this November in Asbury Park, NJ. The event will celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Beatles\u2019 \u201cRubber Soul<\/a>,\u201d and she famously covered \u201cIf I Needed Someone\u201d for the album\u2019s 40th anniversary tribute.<\/p>\n The London-born McKay was raised in New York, where her performances in local piano bars and clubs (\u201cI felt like The Beatles in Hamburg\u201d) in the early 2000s eventually led to her getting a record contract. Years before that, though, she attended music school on a scholarship and grew up listening to the artists her mother played around the house, such as Billie Holiday<\/a>, Bob Dylan<\/a> and The Beatles. As she told Womack, during a childhood trip to a record store, she was enthralled with the selection of Beatles albums. \u201cMy mom said, \u2018You can\u2019t go wrong [with them].\u2019 And you really can\u2019t say that for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came time for her own debut album, 2004\u2019s acclaimed \u201cGet Away From Me,\u201d McKay pondered working with several different producers but knew that Geoff Emerick, who, among many other credits, was known as the innovative recording engineer on several Beatles albums, was the right choice. \u201cI\u2019m just so glad it happened,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just so glad it was Geoff. He had an older skill set, like a filmmaker hand-splicing reels. Now that everything is digitized, it\u2019s a lost art. And he really cared. Some people are in it for everything but the music, and Geoff was all about the music.\u201d<\/p>\n LISTEN:<\/p>\n Follow and listen to \u201cEverything Fab Four\u201d on\u00a0Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0RadioPublic<\/a>,\u00a0Pocket Casts<\/a>\u00a0or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n McKay has recently followed up that album with \u201cGee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos<\/a>\u201d and 2025\u2019s \u201cHey Guys, Watch This<\/a>,\u201d and her music has been featured on such hit shows as \u201cMad Men<\/a>,\u201d \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy<\/a>\u201d and \u201cBoardwalk Empire<\/a>,\u201d among others. And she never stops creating. \u201cCreativity is so therapeutic. People get it crushed out of them, but there\u2019s room for everyone. Music belongs to the people. And everyone loves Beatles songs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything Fab Four\u201d host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books\u00a0<\/span>\u201cSolid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>\u201cJohn Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans,\u00a0<\/span>\u201cLiving the Beatles Legend,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0out now.<\/span><\/p>\n Tickets for Everything Fab Four Fest are now available to purchase on\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Eventbrite<\/span><\/a>. For more information, please visit the festival\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/i>website<\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n The post Nellie McKay on growing up with The Beatles and the therapy of creativity<\/a> appeared first on Salon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Singer-songwriter, musician and actor Nellie McKay joined host Kenneth Womack to discuss going from growing up with The Beatles\u2019 music to working with their recording engineer and much more on \u201cEverything Fab Four,\u201d a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2051279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[380886,339907,380887,369297,380885,380888,32894],"class_list":["post-2051278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-beatles-albums","tag-billie-holiday","tag-geoff-emerick","tag-kenneth-womack","tag-nellie-mckay","tag-recording-engineer","tag-the-beatles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Nellie-McKay-on-growing-up-with-The-Beatles-and-the.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2051279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}