Motherhood infuses everything. Even work. Melissa Errico is best known as a Broadway babe (Dracula, the Musical; My Fair Lady). But having her own babe, Victoria, now 2 (Dad is former tennis pro Patrick McEnroe), led her to record Lullabies and Wildflowers, due out April 29. On April 25, she’ll sing the set’s breezy, soothing tunes at Bloomingdale’s Soho, while moms get pampered with makeup applications. The from-the-heart album wasn’t Errico’s idea initially. When she was shopping an album (as yet unreleased), a music exec commented that all she talked about was the Bowery Babes, a downtown mom’s group–message board she founded with friends from a prenatal yoga class. “I had clubs my whole life—everyone in the neighborhood who liked my cat was welcome to join the Kitty Cat Club,” she says, laughing. She realized it was time to blend her new interest (motherhood) with her old (music). When Errico’s “power” manager didn’t support the resulting lullaby project, she made the album herself. “The first label that heard it signed it, and now I have a new manager.” Each song was carefully chosen: “Tiny Sparrow” was the only lullaby Errico’s mother knew; “Someone to Watch Over Me” was what Errico sang to her daughter when they were briefly separated for medical reasons after birth; “The Wind Says Shh” was a Christmas present from her singer-songwriter brother; “Gentle Child,” meant to capture that “feeling of someone breathing right under your ears,” is the first song she ever wrote. A babe changed this babe, but moms remain her main audience: “I tried to sing to an exhausted peer, a tired lady.” It worked.
4/25, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bloomingdale’s Soho, 504 Broadway, nr. Spring St. (212-729-5900 or bloomingdales.com); free, makeovers while supplies last.