Melissa Etheridge - Melissa Etheridge

Back in the day I had two of Melissa's albums: this one and her follow up Brave and Crazy. I was a rocker (at least I said I was, but I still liked Christopher Cross, so go figure) and not hearing anything as captivating as "Bring Me Some Water" I stopped listening to her stuff. It didn't help that the radio stations I liked didn't seem to play anything of hers so I just moved on.

Of course she'd go one to have one hell of a career I know little or nothing about. Despite me thinking her debut was as good as it got for her history tells another story. If you're a fan, I mean a REAL fan you know more than me. So I'm going to just listen to this one in a vacuum and contain my commentary to the ten songs on her debut. Seems like a reasonable compromise and it'll keep me contained and hopefully on track. 

The album opens with "Similar Features" and man is it a great track - it still sounds so good. I bought the album because "Being Me Some Water" was jaw dropping. Looking at the track list the first side was all new to me. It was inevitable that I was going to be weighing everything I heard against the song on the radio. Even now as I get reacquainted with the album I find myself almost falling into the same trap I set for myself all those years ago. To be honest, when I found the record again I bought it again so I could get that one song ... call me a sucker.

Admittedly back then and even now It was a terrible way to listen to the record. I still inadvertently focused my attention on one song but I was determined not to miss out on a whole album worth of great songs. I had been looking through the wrong end of the telescope, I wasn't going to do that again. Having said that back in '88 I didn't dismiss the entire album but I had passed judgment early and moved on to other things before I was able to really let this one sink in.

It happens ... it still happens.

However, here I am decades later with another chance to revisit an album I always thought was good but still associated with a single track, and while after the dust has settled I still think the centre piece is "Bring Me Some Water" it is not the heart and soul of the record. It is a album that is at its best when listened to in a sitting ... in my case I played it over and over for a couple of days.

What stands out is the interplay between the core trio of Etheridge, drummer Craig Krampf and bassist Kevin McCormick who produced and arranged the tracks. Niko Bolas served as co-producer and also recorded and mixed the album. To help fresh things out they brought in Waddy Wachtel on guitar along with some others (they're names I don't recognize, but their contributions sounded great). However it is the core trio who anchor everything, and they ... are ... awesome, and the record sound so good.

I only had a couple of her albums and while I don't have a lot of knowledge with respect to her later output, this one will forever cement her place as one of the greats.