Erin McKeown

All Music Guide:

Raised in Fredricksburg, VA, singer/songwriter Erin McKeown began her folk career by performing in local clubs and coffeehouses at night. By day, she attended Brown University to study ethnomusicology, a field that would eventually fuel the diversity and depth of her own music. In 1995, McKeown entered the mid-Atlantic song contest held by the songwriters' association in Washington, DC, and finished as a semi-finalist. With proof that others believed in her talent, she worked hard to found a label of her own, where she could record her music free of outside constraints. After creating TVP Records, she enlisted help from artists like Ben Demerath, Katryna Nields, and Beth Amsel to record her debut album, Monday Morning Cold.

In 2000, McKeown completed her second album, Distillation, which was initially released under her own TVP label before receiving wider exposure courtesy of a partnership with Signature Records. McKeown continued to shop various labels, and 2003's Grand marked her debut release for Nettwerk. Two years later, she and producer Tucker Martine came together to record We Will Become Like Birds, an album that featured duets with Argentine artist Juana Molina and singer/songwriter Peter Mulvey. North American tour dates with Ani DiFranco -- another female folk singer with a strong independent streak -- followed shortly thereafter.

McKeown's skill on multiple instruments -- particularly guitar, piano, banjo, and mandolin -- earned her additional gigs, including a spot in the band Voices on the Verge and guest appearances on albums by Dan Bern, Andy Stochansky, 10,000 Maniacs, Martin Sexton, and Dar Williams. Her solo career remained at the top of her agenda, however, and she returned to the studio to record a standards album, Sing You Sinners, in 2006. Hundreds of Lions followed in 2009, marking McKeown's first release for Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe label. McKeown also joined the board of the Future of Music Coalition and was a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society in 2012. For 2013's politically minded Manifestra -- which was funded via the PledgeMusic platform by her fans in six days -- McKeown co-wrote a song with MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow, collaborated with Polly Paulusma and Ryan Montbleau on other tracks and released the album on her own imprint, TVP Records.

Wikipedia:

Erin McKeown (pronounced "mick-YONE") is an American multi-instrumentalist and folk-rock singer/songwriter.

McKeown began her career in the folk scene. She released her first album, Monday Morning Cold, on her own label (TVP Records), travelling throughout New England while still a student at Brown University in order to promote the record. Although she had begun studying ornithology, she graduated from Brown with a degree in ethnomusicology.

McKeown's music is difficult to categorize in terms of genre; it has touched upon pop, swing, rock, folk, and electronic music, as well as many other genres. McKeown cites The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as an influence on her music.

The Philadelphia Weekly recently described McKeown's music, saying:

More singer-songwriters should follow the lead of Erin McKeown, the kooky songbird who's proved both playful and daring throughout her career. With a lilting delivery and chameleonic instrumentation, she even slipped into French for "Coucou," a gem off her unlikely standards album Sing You Sinners. But with McKeown, is anything really unlikely?

McKeown continues to perform regularly, spending much of her time touring throughout the world with artists such as Ani DiFranco, Josh Ritter, the Indigo Girls, Martin Sexton, Andrew Bird, Thea Gilmore, Melissa Ferrick, Allison Miller, and others. McKeown also took part in Queerstock, a music festival dedicated to promoting LGBT musicians.

Early in her career, she also collaborated with Beth Amsel, Jess Klein, and Rose Polenzani; the four of them performed as Voices on the Verge.

McKeown's 2005 album, We Will Become Like Birds (produced by Tucker Martine), served as a departure from her earlier work, with a more rock-oriented sound. At a September 1, 2008, concert at The Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville, Virginia, McKeown told the audience that she wrote this album "in an attempt to write myself out of the worst heartache I'd experienced up to that point."

Her next studio release, Sing You Sinners, was released in Europe on the 23 October 2006 and in the United States on January 9, 2007 by Nettwerk Records LLC. It consists mostly of covers of jazz standards from the 1920s through 1950s.

McKeown's latest record, Hundreds of Lions, was released under Righteous Babe Records on October 13, 2009. Additionally, a series of web concerts recorded in 2009 are available at McKeown's website. McKeown is also currently member of an unsigned band known as "emma", which she created with her friend Allison Miller. McKeown has plans to write a book of poetry.

McKeown is noted for her energetic stage presence and her habit of wearing tailored suits, often with ties and Fluevog shoes, to performances.

She grew up in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and now lives in Massachusetts.

She occasionally performs big band music with the Beantown Swing Orchestra.

McKeown was selected to be a 2011-2012 fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. There, she will "work to connect the worlds of policy, art, and technology while considering questions about how to make a creative life a viable vocation."