I want to come over
Melissa Etheridge makes her way to Chicago area
Melissa Etheridge released her self-titled debut album in 1988. Her latest album takes listeners back to songs she wrote early in her career but did not release until recently.
Etheridge’s tour in support of “One Way Out” includes Oct. 3 (rescheduled from March 26, 2020, and Sept. 26, 2020) at Genesee Theatre in Waukegan, Oct. 6 at Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, and Oct. 8 (rescheduled from March 28, 2020) at Four Winds New Buffalo’s Silver Creek Event Center in Michigan.
“Every city is different. Every venue is different but overall I’m certainly happy and grateful to be back onstage lifting people up with music,” said Etheridge, whose wife, Linda Wallem, grew up in Rockford.
“I tailor my set list to each place I go but, of course, we always start with the hits. You’re going to hear the songs you know and love. I’m spotlighting two albums every night. I do three songs from an older album and then a newer album.
“Most newer people know the older songs but it’s fun to reach in and say, ‘This is an album you might not know.’ The old-time fans just love new songs they haven’t heard live before, and there’s a couple from the new album.”
“One Way Out,” which came out digitally on Sept. 17 and is slated for an Oct. 1 physical release, features seven songs Etheridge wrote in the late 1980s and early 1990s and newly recorded with the original band she toured with: John Shanks (guitar), Kevin McCormick (bass) and Fritz Lewak (drums).
“It’s almost like this is the perfect time. These are songs that sat on the shelf and got better and better. They feel really great and they seem to be getting a really great response,” Etheridge said about “One Way Out,” which includes the title track, “For the Last Time” and “As Cool As You Try.”
“I’m so far away from where a lot of these songs came from. I can just appreciate them and people might relate to them and really enjoy them.”
Niko Bolas, who coproduced Etheridge’s debut album and 1989’s “Brave and Crazy,” produced and engineered “One Way Out,” which also features the previously unreleased “Life Goes On” and “You Have No Idea” from a different time.
Those two songs were recorded during a 2002 concert she performed with her then band of James Harrah (guitar), Mark Brown (bass) and Kenny Aronoff (drums) at the Roxy in West Hollywood, California.
“I was trying new music out for ‘Lucky.’ I really liked the songs but they never worked out in the studio. I’m so glad to finally get them out to my fans,” Etheridge said.
The singer-songwriter and guitarist’s award-winning catalog includes “Ain’t It Heavy,” for which she won a Grammy for best rock vocal performance, female for 1992; and “Come to My Window,” for which she won a Grammy for best female rock vocal performance for 1994.
She also won an Academy Award for original song for “I Need to Wake Up” from the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“I’m very grateful for how my career has evolved and its longevity. Just making it to 60 and still playing live music — that’s a pretty good achievement,” said Etheridge, who turned 60 years old in May.
“I do enjoy the cathartic release of getting your emotions, thoughts and things outside of you. I enjoy taking the raw material and crafting it into something that is a piece of poetry and music and maybe something that could move another human being.”
Etheridge, a breast cancer survivor and activist, started a foundation following the death of her son Beckett Cypher in May 2020.
“The Etheridge Foundation is just getting on its feet and starting to raise money for research into alternatives to opioids for pain,” she said.
“I miss him terribly but as I travel through America I see that the opioid problem is huge and it’s something that we’ll really have to change.”
Something that does not change for Etheridge is how much she said she enjoys performing older songs such as “Like the Way I Do.”
“No matter where I am in the whole entire world, that song never lets me down,” said Etheridge, who credits fans with elevating the concert experience.
“It’s all about the fans. They’re the difference between a good show and a great show.”