Song:Come To My Window
Album:Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled
Today Melissa Etheridge is probably best known for coming out as gay when it wasn't as acceptable as it is today. And also for her public battle with breast cancer. But she had commercial success especially with the 1993 album Yes I Am and the singles I'm The Only One and Come To My Window. She was born May 29, 1961 in Leavenworth, KS. Her father taught at the local high school. After graduating high school, Melissa moved to Boston to study music at Berklee. She played local clubs. She left Berklee after three semesters and moved to Los Angeles to break into the music business. One of her friends on a women's soccer team told her manager husband Bill Leopold to check her out. This led to Melissa signing with Island Records. She wrote some songs for the 1986 film Weeds. Island owner Chris Blackwell rejected Melissa's debut album as too polished. That turned out to be a great decision as her 1988 album Melissa Etheridge was a big success. The album was certified 2XPlatinum and the single Bring Me Some Water got significant college radio airplay. So now she's established and Melissa continued to have success. But the 1993 album Yes I Am produced by Genesis producer Hugh Padgham took her to a higher level. The album was certified 6XPlatinum. I'm The Only One reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Come To My Window reached #25. It was around this time that Melissa came out as gay. And she won a Grammy. She started to fade after that. You can get all her hits on this budget comp. Coming out probably affected album sale negatively. But Melissa was still a great concert draw and she recorded for Island for many years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. And she won a Best Original Song Oscar in 2006 for I Need To Wake Up from the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Melissa left Island in 2012 to start her own label distributed by Concord. Her new album The Medicine Show was released last month and she is touring to support that. Here's the video for Come To My Window by Melissa Etheridge. The actress in the video is Juliette Lewis.
My sister, was and is still a huge fan of hers. When she came out as gay, my sister did not care one bit and still liked her a lot. My sister is hetero and just loves her music which she says strikes a cord within her. I understand and can appreciate her view and liking of Melissa's music, she is very good and talented and sings straight from her heart as a woman first.
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