Before Ingrid Michaelson became a household name she was just another girl in the chorus at Binghamton University. Our stints there overlapped by one year, and oh for the days I used to see her perform in front of 10 people for a five-dollar cover charge.
Ingrid’s got a new release out today, “new” for completists such as myself. It’s been fun going through the 17 tracks on Songs for the Season (Deluxe Edition) figuring out which ones I’d heard before and which actually were new. Two out seventeen fit the latter category, but even two new tracks are like “Happy, Happy Christmas” for this guy.
For years I’ve used the phrase “ballpark singer” as a moniker of admiration reserved for a select set of vocalists. Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole. These are ballpark singers. That is, they are in the same ballpark as the master of them all, one Francis Albert Sinatra.
Ingrid Michaelson? I’m opening the gates to the stadium.
From Binghamton to the ballpark.
She and I have at least one mutual friend and a few acquaintances in common. I only ran into her on campus once when I was tabling for the Review at a student activity fair in the Mandela Room. She was a member of the Binghamtonics, who were quite close by because the tables were arranged alphabetically. I remember a gaggle of girls loudly yelling “Ingrid!” when she came over to the table and my only reaction was to think “Who the hell names their kid Ingrid?” Needless to say, I regret being a little shallow in that moment, but I was 19 and therefore an idiot.
Similar only-recognizing-celebrity-in-retrospect here as well. But I definitely saw her perform once for five bucks. Bet it costs a little more than that now.
Tickets for her upcoming show in NYC on December 5th are $49.50 in advance/$55 at the door.