Melissa Etheridge with ZZ Ward

Melissa Etheridge stormed onto the American rock scene in 1988 with the release of her critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, which led to an appearance on the 1989 Grammy Awards show. Known for her confessional lyrics and raspy, smoky vocals, she has remained one of America’s favorite female singer-songwriters for more than two decades. In February 2007, she celebrated a career milestone with a victory in the Best Song category at the Academy^® Awards for “I Need to Wake Up,” written for the Al Gore documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. As a performer and songwriter, Etheridge has shown herself to be an artist who has never allowed “inconvenient truths” to keep her down. Earlier in her recording career, she acknowledged her sexual orientation when doing so was considered less than prudent. In October 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer—a health battle that, with her typical tenacity, she won. Despite losing her hair from chemotherapy, Etheridge appeared on the 2005 Grammy^® telecast to sing “Piece of My Heart” in tribute to Janis Joplin and give hope to many. In 2021, Etheridge released the nine-track album One Way Out—a collection of songs she wrote in the late 1980s and early ‘90s that hadn’t made the cut—giving fans a deeper glimpse of who she was.