Ah, Nellie McKay. How can you not love an over-the-top quirky jazz-pop-cabaret pianist who sings songs about having her very own clone?

McKay releases her latest album, Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute To Doris Day, this week. And sadly, as expected, she's not touring anywhere near Tampa Bay in support of it.

But she WILL be checking in with a Tampa Bay institution this week.

On Wednesday morning, McKay will return as a guest on Talking Animals, the pet show on WMNF-88.5. Apparently she's a friend of the show -- and she's not the only prominent musician who is.

Longtime host Duncan Strauss has interviewed a number of cool musicians on the program to talk about their animal causes -- Chrissie Hynde, Moby, Kinky Friedman, Emmylou Harris, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and John Doe of X, to name a few.

Talking Animals: Connecting Tampa Bay music fans with their heroes since 2005. Who knew?

Click here for details. And click here to listen to the show from 11:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday.

-- Jay Cridlin, tbt*