Micah McKee

Based in New Orleans — frontman of Little Maker and The Lonesome Wilde; host of the American 100 podcast

Micah McKee has been a fixture of the New Orleans music scene for years, leading the guitar-pop outfit Little Maker, the six-piece pop ensemble Empress Hotel, and now The Lonesome Wilde. His 2021 solo album Abundances (Campers' Rule Records) gathers some of the best songs he's ever written, and his American 100 podcast traces the history of American music through the Billboard Top 100. Night after night you'll find him on neighborhood stages from the Banks Street Bar to the Old Point Bar, singing his own catalog alongside lovingly picked covers.

Why We Love Micah McKee

Micah McKee writes the way New Orleans neighborhood musicians play: heart first, craft a close second. Across Little Maker's guitar-pop, Empress Hotel's artful pop experiments, and The Lonesome Wilde's roadhouse Americana, he's one of the city's most prolific songwriters — the kind of guy who can hold a barroom with a Bob Dylan deep cut and follow it with an original that feels like it always existed. The American 100 podcast is the same impulse in another form: a love letter to the songs that raised him, delivered by someone still writing his own chapters.

Biography

A Fixture of the Neighborhood Scene

Micah McKee dug into the New Orleans music scene and never left, fronting a series of bands that map the city's indie and Americana corners. With Little Maker he played sharp, melodic guitar-pop on Frenchmen Street and beyond — the kind of band you stumbled onto at the Blue Nile and never forgot. As a member of Empress Hotel, a six-piece pop ensemble inspired by '70s one-hit wonders and legends like Prince, Sparks, and Roxy Music, he helped craft stream-of-consciousness pop with dynamic vocal melodies and layered harmonies.

Micah's one of New Orleans' more prolific songwriters.

— Ranking The Beatles podcast

In 2021 McKee released Abundances, his solo debut, on Campers' Rule Records — a collection of some of the best songs he's written. Alongside his own music he hosts the American 100 podcast, which explores the music of America by way of the history of the Billboard Top 100 chart, and has become a thoughtful guide to the songs that shaped generations of listeners.

These days McKee fronts The Lonesome Wilde and has been working in the studio with producer and engineer Blake Langlinais on a full-length album of his best songs. His regular gigs — from the Banks Street Bar and MRB Bar & Kitchen to Sunday afternoons at the Old Point Bar — mix originals like “Ayla,” “Whispers of Endymion,” and “Empty Homes” with lovingly picked covers from Dylan, soul standards, and the Great American songbook. It's the sound of a songwriter who never stopped showing up.