Hotel Café Tour: Ingrid Michaelson

By Naila Francis
Published: October 24th, 2008 | 11:50am

"One bus, one band and a bunch of friends on the road." It's the tag line to what has become one of the most successful singer-songwriter tours of the last few years. And this time around, the Hotel Café Tour is giving it up to the women. Launched by that now venerable Hollywood venue with a reputation for breaking new talent, the tour has been throwing together headliners and local emerging singer-songwriters for the last four years, showcasing their music as much as the convivial atmosphere that the café is known for on jaunts across the United States and the United Kingdom. This year's tour, kicking off October 9 in Santa Barbara, California, features 18 of the most promising new female voices (including a few familiar favorites) to hit their stage in recent times.

"There are so many tours where it's a bunch of guys and this was an opportunity to show an area where females are dominating the current market," says tour co-founder Josh Neuman. "We wanted to bring diverse artists together from many different cultural and musical backgrounds. It's always exciting to see how people will get along out there and what collaborations come from it."

In this series running throughout the duration of the tour, which concludes November 18 in Los Angeles (check thehotelcafetour.com for dates, tickets, and more on the featured artists at each venue), Venuszine.com puts the spotlight on the women who've caught our ear and the reasons we think you should tune in to them, too.

Ingrid Michaelson

Age: 28

Home base: Staten Island, New York

Pick up: Be OK, released October 14 on her own Cabin 24 Records

Sound: Vibrant, mellifluous pop-folk with an occasionally quirky bent

Branching out: Michaelson first popped onto the radar when three songs from her self-released album, Girls and Boys, appeared on Grey’s Anatomy,in addition to “Keep Breathing,” an original penned just for the show. VH1’s first unsigned artist to be picked for its You Oughta Know promotion, she rocketed out of obscurity largely on the strength of the giddily infectious single “The Way I Am.” For Be OK, the singer’s sweet croon expands in range and texture while the songs alternate between sparkling optimism and weary resignation. “I think I am shedding the typical female singer-songwriter skin that I wore at first, being a bit more daring vocally and lyrically, and a bit darker,” says Michaelson. “I am an optimist on some days and a pessimist on others. It’s how I was built. I think that is why my songs echo that nature.”

Borrowed gems: A mix of new songs, covers, and live tracks, Be OK features perennial favorite “Over The Rainbow” — “Its simplicity kills me; the lyrics are so simple but strong,” she says — and the Elvis classic “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” But Michaelson isn’t necessarily a fan of the King. “I just think that is one of the most beautiful songs ever written” she says.

Taking a stand: Michaelson will donate a portion of all proceeds from Be OK to Stand Up To Cancer, an initiative working to raise funds to accelerate cancer research. The album’s hopeful title track has appeared on the group’s Web site, and a Be OK necklace that she personally designed will be sold on a national album tour that she’ll begin after her Hotel Café Tour dates, with all proceeds going to the organization. “I met a few people who work at SU2C, and I knew I had to do something to be involved,” says Michaelson, who wanted the tenor of her album to be “uplifting with threads of sadness,” a theme she felt was befitting a benefit project.

Who’s famous?: Despite a whirlwind last year with the ubiquitous “The Way I Am” featured in an Old Navy television campaign and her tunes also appearing on One Tree Hill and The Hills and numerous TV appearances, Michaelson insists she is not famous. She still lives with her parents in the house she grew up in on Staten Island, though she plans to move in the new year, and still harbors the pragmatic awareness that her fairytale success could all be gone tomorrow. “I think I am grounded because I was brought up well,” she says. “Never think you are better than anyone else, but have confidence in your greatness.”

Expecting the best: Enamored with the idea of an all-female lineup for the Hotel Café Tour, Michaelson realizes the potential for more than friendly bonding. “Women can get bitchy. And jealous,” she says. “But I know most of these girls, and I do not foresee any issues. They are all chill ladies.”
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Ingrid Michaelson MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/ingridmichaelson