MELISSA LOU ETHERIDGE, 'BRING ME SOME WATER'

Melissa Etheridge

Fourth day at home. The Grandma is still without enough force to go out. She feels tired and she prefers to stay at home listening to music.

Today, she has chosen Melissa Etheridge's songs. The Grandma likes rock, country and folk music and Melissa Etheridge is one of her favourite artists.

Melissa Etheridge was born on a day like today in 1961 and The Grandma wants to homage her talking about her career.

Melissa Lou Etheridge, born May 29, 1961, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist. Etheridge was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, the younger of two girls of Elizabeth (Williamson), a computer consultant, and John Etheridge, an American Constitution teacher at Leavenworth High School.

Her self-titled debut album Melissa Etheridge was released in 1988 and became an underground success. The album peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard 200, and its lead single, Bring Me Some Water, garnered Etheridge her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female.

Brave and Crazy followed the same musical formula as her eponymous debut garnering a Grammy nomination. The album peaked at #22 on the Billboard charts, equal to her first album.

More information: Melissa Etheridge

Etheridge then went on the road, like one of her musical influences, Bruce Springsteen, and built a loyal fan base. Etheridge has covered his songs Thunder Road and Born to Run during live shows.

In 1993, Etheridge won her first Grammy award for her single Ain't It Heavy from her third album, Never Enough. Later that year, she released what would become her mainstream breakthrough album, Yes I Am.

Melissa Etheridge

Its tracks I'm the Only One and Come to My Window both reached the top 30 in the United States, and the latter earned Etheridge her second Grammy award. Yes I Am peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, and spent 138 weeks on the chart, earning a RIAA certification of 6× Platinum, her largest to date.

In 1994, Etheridge played a cover version of Burning Love live in Memphis, during the It's Now Or Never, The Tribute To Elvis. Also in 1994, she was honored by VH-1 for her work with the AIDS organization L.A. Shanti. During the televised occasion, she highlighted the appearance with a performance of I'm the Only One and a duet with Sammy Hagar covering The Rolling Stones' song, Honky Tonk Woman.

The album's fifth single, If I Wanted To, debuted in February 1995 on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 25, the highest debut for a single in 1995.

Etheridge returned to the music charts with the release of Breakdown in October 1999. Breakdown peaked at #12 on the Billboard charts and spent 18 weeks in the charts. Despite this, Breakdown was the only album of Etheridge's career to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

More information: The Melissa Etheridge Cruise

Later that year, Etheridge released her first compilation album, Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled. The album was a success, peaking at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and going Gold almost immediately. Her latest studio album is The Medicine Show.

Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals. She has also been a gay and lesbian activist since her public coming out in January 1993. She has received fifteen Grammy Award nominations throughout her career, winning two, in 1993 and 1995.

In 2002, Etheridge released an autobiography entitled The Truth Is: My Life in Love and Music.

Melissa Etheridge

In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. At the 2005 Grammy Awards, she made a return to the stage and, although bald from chemotherapy, performed a tribute to Janis Joplin with the song Piece of My Heart. Etheridge's performance was widely lauded.

Etheridge wrote I Need to Wake Up for the film documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006. The song was released only on the enhanced version of her greatest hits album, The Road Less Traveled.

In 2007, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for I Need to Wake Up from the film An Inconvenient Truth. In September 2011, Etheridge received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

More information: AARP

Etheridge was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama titled 1 a Minute released in 2010. The documentary is being made by actress Namrata Singh Gujral and will also feature breast cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Namrata Singh Gujral, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith as well as William Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin and Priya Dutt. The feature is narrated by Kelly McGillis. The film will also star Bárbara Mori, Lisa Ray, Deepak Chopra and Morgan Brittany.

On June 9, 2015 she released a live album titled: A Little Bit of Me: Live in L.A.. It was recorded at the closing show of the U.S. leg of her This Is M.E. Tour on December 12, 2014 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

February 14, 2019 it would be announced on Etheridge's social media pages that her upcoming 14th studio album would be entitled The Medicine Show and promoted by the Medicine Show tour.

More information: Rolling Stone

 Life happens, and I write about it wherever I am.

Melissa Etheridge