Iowa debut |
Melissa Greener is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter with a voice as strong
as her guitar-playing. Quirky and literate songs hint at her
one-of-kind roots: a hippie dad and a mother who was a lounge singer at the
Playboy Club and a classically trained opera singer.
For some, Melissa conjures a young and fierce Joni Mitchell, for others a
just plain fierce Ani DiFranco. Like Ani, a do-it-yourself spirit informs
everything from her music to her business model. Fans, for example, can
support her new CD at various levels (the $10,000 Transcender includes a
custom written and recorded song as well as family-secret-recipe Chocolate
Peanut-butter Brownies delivered to your door).
The music is what matters, though, taking cues from the great
singer-songwriters of the ‘70s like Mitchell, Neil Young and Paul Simon. Her
style is poetic lyricism matched by honeyed melodies and down-to-earth
delivery. Her debut CD, Fall From the Sky, features songs meant for
movement, whether through the terrain of lost memories or across the
American landscape. Hers is music that translates the longing, loneliness
and anticipation that comes with world travel and touring America solo in a
van.
Melissa sometimes compares her music to painting; in fact, she started out
as a visual artist, in ceramics. “In 2002 I was living in a small village in
rural China, teaching at a Ceramic Institute and was borrowing a guitar from
one of my students,” she says. “I wrote lot of songs -- they were flowing
out of me like water. It was that year that I discovered (much to my dismay)
that I would be miserable if I didn’t give music my fullest effort and
attention.”
Born in Detroit and now based in Manhattan, Greener says her true home is
Austin, Texas, where she gigged and wrote music for years, and will
eventually return.
Melissa’s sophomore effort —
helmed by acclaimed producer John Jennings (Mary
Chapin Carpenter, Janis Ian, Indigo Girls, John Gorka, Catie Curtis, Bill
Morrisey, Cheryl Wheeler, Kathy Mattea, George Jones and Iris DeMent)
—
is due
for a spring 2010 release. “These songs are my strongest yet,” she says of
the record, “reflecting on notions of home, family and quirks of the human
condition. My first record felt like I was sculpting an art project. With
this album every single element is there to support the song. I can’t wait
to release this project.”
Catch the unreleased songs live and you’ll be able to say you saw Melissa
Greener when ….
::: Opening for Melissa Greener is Pezzettino
Sun Oct 18
| 7 pm CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$10 + fee in advance | $12
at the door
