From elegant pop to balls-out rock, sweet electronics to witty swing, Erin McKeown has packed a ton of music into her young career. With 5 albums, 2 EPs, and numerous soundtracks and compilations to her credit, the 29-year-old songwriter and multi-instrumentalist hasn't stopped for a breather in the last 10 years. Along the way she has averaged 200 shows a year and garnered the praise of fans and critics alike. McKeown's newest release is Lafayette, a rollicking evening with her six-piece Little Big Band. 

 

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For more information and tour dates, please visit
www.erinmckeown.com
www.myspace.com/erinmckeown

Biography

“Ms. McKeown and her folk-punk swing band let nothing stand in their way as they pluck songs out of their museum cases, blow off the dust and lightly toss them around. A fresh, unsentimental spin to familiar material.” - Stephen Holden, New York Times

 “Irresistibly entertaining. McKeown bounds and bounces in a genuine vein, thanks to her spirited song-stylist sensibility and her smart enlistment of a simpatico support group.” - Dan Ouellette, Billboard 
 
After 5 full-length albums, 2 EP’s, hundreds of shows every year, reams of critical praise, and an incalculable number of fans served, where is Erin McKeown to go? She heads to Lafayette.
 
Named after the address of New York’s much-loved Joe’s Pub, Lafayette is the acclaimed songwriter’s first official live album and an on-record invitation into her other world, the stage, where she spends more than half of every year knocking ‘em dead nightly. Over 13 tracks, Lafayette captures the energy and musicality of McKeown as a bandleader and entertainer extraordinaire.
 
Lafayette is one night in the life of a performer at the peak of her powers. With a singer’s natural gift and a guitarist’s serious chops (often overlooked on her studio albums), McKeown leads her band through their paces on songs new and old, fast and slow, boisterous and reflective. And the group returns the favor, playing the bandleader on and off stage like the elegant entertainers of yesteryear.
 
The album is also a return to Erin’s roots and Western Massachusetts neighbors, Signature Sounds, the exceptional imprint who last worked with Erin on 2000’s Distillation. A national tour is in the works for the Fall, with dates to be announced shortly.

Press

New York Times - 2007-11-22

''Sing You Sinners'' 
(Nettwerk)

Whether or not you warm to ''Sing You Sinners,'' Erin Mckeown's breezy album of popular standards (several of them obscure) depends on the rigidity of your musical purism. Ms. Mckeown and her folk-punk swing band let nothing stand in their way as they pluck songs out of their museum cases, blow off the dust and lightly toss them around.

Playing guitar and banjo as well as singing, Ms. Mckeown flaunts an off-handed, tomboyish exuberance that suits vintage swing numbers like ''Thanks for the Boogie Ride'' popularized in 1941 by Anita O'Day, a singer she resembles in attitude, if not in style. ''Rhode Island Is Famous for You,'' the pun-filled Dietz-Schwartz comic ode to the smallest state in the union, ''Get Happy'' and ''Sing You Sinners'' also bend to her upbeat jocular approach.

But her talky, simplified readings of more musically sophisticated fare like ''Something's Gotta Give,'' ''Just One of the Those Things,'' and ''Don't Worry 'Bout Me,'' are problematic. Harmonies are pared down to a few rudimentary chords, and Ms. Mckeown crudely glosses over melodies that she lacks the vocal chops to sing as written. On its own iconoclastic terms, ''Sing You Sinners'' at least succeeds in giving a fresh, unsentimental spin to familiar material.

Ms. Mckeown performs at Irving Plaza tonight and at Joe's Pub Tuesday and Wednesday. 
STEPHEN HOLDEN

PEOPLE Magazine - 2007-11-22


On the swinging title track of her fifth album - a not-so-standard collection of tunes from the '30s, '40s and '50s - 29 year-old Erin McKeown seems to be possessed by the spirit of Rosemary Clooney.  Then on her plucky rendition of the Summer Stock gem "Get Happy" she channels a bit of Judy Garland.  But holding no song sacred, the lush-voiced McKeown, who also plays guitar and banjo, puts her own irreverent stamp on these numbers as well.  Backed by her trusty trio, she turns the classic "Paper Moon" into a calypso-style ditty that both shimmies and shimmers.  And the snappy "Melody", the only McKeown original here, shows that she has learned well from the tuneful teachings of an era gone by.  ***/****

USA TODAY - 2007-11-22

Her raw, amateurish voice may make McKeown an unlikely standard-bearer, but this collection of beloved and lesser-known traditional-pop gems from the Great American Songbook is executed with more intuition and charm than many latter-day stars have brought to traditional pop.  The lean, smart arragements, which McKeown produced, are especially winning, from an intimate, reverent They Say It's Spring to more playful readings of Paper Moon and Rhode Island Is Famous for You.

Discography


Lafayette (2007)



Sing You Sinners (2006)



We Will Become Like Birds (2005)



Grand (2003)



Distillation (2000)



Contacts

Management

Canada
Starfish Entertainment
Jude Coombe
416-588-3329
jude@starfishentertainment.com
 
Worldwide
Public Emily
Emily Lichter
413-527-4900
emily@publicemily.com

 

Record Company

Signature Sounds
Jim Olsen
413-665-4036
jim@signaturesounds.com


Agent

US and CANADA
The Billions Corporation
Mary Brabec
312-997-9999
brabec@billions.com

UK and EUROPE
Asgard Promotions Ltd
Paul Fenn
44 20 7387 5090
info@asgard-uk.com

 

Publicist

Public Emily
Ben Sterling, Justin Brown
413-527-4900
ben@publicemily.com
justin@publicemily.com

 

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