Melody Gardot, Music That Heals People

Melody Gardot is a musician and writer from Philadelphia, born on February 2, 1985. Her official website states that “Melody Gardot blends jazz and blues into a sultry mix, a stylish sonic expression of the place where music meets life.”

Beside that cool introduction, she isn’t just another Jazz-Blues American Singer.  She is also a healer, and an inspiration. And how in the world could that be?

The story begins when Melody was 18, she was hit by a Jeep who ignores the traffic light while she’s cycling with her bike.  Because of that accident, she suffered serious head and spinal injuries and her pelvis was broken in two places. She spent the next 1 year lying in the bed at a hospital. Can you imagine that?

Lying in the bed for one year is not her only problems at that time. She also has a short time memory problems, as well as sensitivity to lights and sounds, resulting her to wear sunglasses almost all the time. She has described coping with this as like “climbing Mount Everest every day” as she often wakes with no memory of what she has to do that day.

“Climbing Mount Everest everyday” seems equal to “My life has ended” for me, but not for Melody Gardot. With all these hard issues, she continue to pursue her music career. She learned to play guitar and she started to write songs to fill her hospital days.

After the accident, at first it was difficult for her to even recognize sounds, or even music. She started with humming, and at last she mastered guitar and write songs. How’s that for an improvement? She believes that music could help her on the recovery progress, and she’s absolutely correct.

Nowadays, Gardot is known as a humanitarian who often speaks about the benefits of music therapy. She has visited various universities and hospitals to speak about its ability to help reconnect neural pathways in the brain, improve speech ability, and lift general spirits.

She also has a successful music career, which was shown with her feature on the Grammy Nominations.  She already released 2 great albums, “Worrisome Heart” and “My One and Only Thrill”.

Instead of giving up, Melody Gardot shown a strong character. I could relate that to my life. I am battling with a Tumor right now. I felt really down and disappointed in the beginning, I asked God why things like this happened to me and not to my friends. But the story of Melody Gardot taught me that complaining won’t cure me, it only weakens me.

Source :
http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/melodygardot/music/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Gardot, http://www.melodygardot.com/