ASCAP Founders Award

ASCAP Honors Melissa Etheridge Whose Words and Music Have Enlightened Our Hearts and Spirits.

As she receives the ASCAP Founders Award tonight, Melissa Etheridge is honored for the anthemic power of so much of her music, the compassion and generosity of spirit at work in her lyrics and her enduring status as one of the all-time female rock icons.

In February 2007, Melissa Etheridge 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. Over the course of her more than two decades 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, Etheridge acknowledged her sexual orientation when it was considered less than prudent to do so. And just two and a half years ago, Etheridge 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. By doing so she gave hope to many women afflicted with the disease.

Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, Melissa Etheridge picked up the guitar at the age of eight and began playing in local bands in her teens. After completing high school, Etheridge was accepted as a student at Boston's Berklee College of Music, but left after only one year to make her way as a performer in Los Angeles. Her bluesy vocal style and riveting stage presence began earning Etheridge a strong following. Shortly after a chance encounter at a small club in Long Beach with music industry legend and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell she was signed to the label.

Etheridge's first album, Melissa Etheridge (1988), was a critically-acclaimed debut that led to her being invited to sing on the 1989 Grammy® Awards broadcast. For several years, her popularity grew around such memorable originals as "Bring Me Some Water," "No Souvenirs" and "Ain't It Heavy" for which she won a Grammy® in 1992. Etheridge hit her commercial and artistic stride with her fourth album, Yes I Am (1993). The collection featured the massive hits "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window," a searing song of longing that brought Etheridge her second Grammy® Award for Best Female Rock Performance. In 1995, Etheridge issued her highest charting album, Your Little Secret, which was distinguished by the hit single, "I Want to Come Over." Her astounding success that year led to Etheridge receiving Songwriter of the Year honors at the ASCAP Pop Awards in 1996.

Etheridge continuted to write, record and tour throughout the nineties and into the new millennium, releasing Skin (2001) and the upbeat Lucky (2004) along with her DVD's Live And Alone (2002) and Lucky Live (2004). 2005 marked the release of Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled, which includes "I Run for Life" commissioned by Ford Cares as part of their cancer initiative in support of The Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure. The album has recently been re-released in an Eco-pak, to include Etheridge's Oscar® winning song "I Need To Wake Up."


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