Singer-songwriter, musician and actor Nellie McKay joined host Kenneth Womack to discuss going from growing up with The Beatles’ music to working with their recording engineer and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.
As timing would have it, McKay will also be joining us in conversation with Womack and for a musical performance at the inaugural “Everything Fab Four” Fest this November in Asbury Park, NJ. The event will celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul,” and she famously covered “If I Needed Someone” for the album’s 40th anniversary tribute.
The London-born McKay was raised in New York, where her performances in local piano bars and clubs (“I felt like The Beatles in Hamburg”) 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, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. As she told Womack, during a childhood trip to a record store, she was enthralled with the selection of Beatles albums. “My mom said, ‘You can’t go wrong [with them].’ And you really can’t say that for a lot of people.”
When it came time for her own debut album, 2004’s acclaimed “Get Away From Me,” 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. “I’m just so glad it happened,” she said. “I’m just so glad it was Geoff. He had an older skill set, like a filmmaker hand-splicing reels. Now that everything is digitized, it’s a lost art. And he really cared. Some people are in it for everything but the music, and Geoff was all about the music.”
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McKay has recently followed up that album with “Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos” and 2025’s “Hey Guys, Watch This,” and her music has been featured on such hit shows as “Mad Men,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Boardwalk Empire,” among others. And she never stops creating. “Creativity is so therapeutic. People get it crushed out of them, but there’s room for everyone. Music belongs to the people. And everyone loves Beatles songs.”
“Everything Fab Four” host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books “Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles” and “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.” His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans, “Living the Beatles Legend,” out now.
Tickets for Everything Fab Four Fest are now available to purchase on Eventbrite. For more information, please visit the festival’s website.
