“I chose to survive,” Melissa Etheridge sings on “Being Alive,”
the powerful, exuberant opening song of the Academy Award and Grammy Award winning artist’s 17th studio
album, “Rise.” She then takes a pause, the flurry of her guitar and her
bandmates’ boisterous sounds fading out, before she practically shouts, with
unbridled joy: “God I love being alive!” The words say so much. But in that
pause — just a few seconds long — it’s as if she’s looking at everything that
has happened in her life in the time since she last released an album of new
material, 2019’s “The Medicine Show,” and with it everything that is to come on
this remarkable, emotional mosaic of songs. And it’s a lot. Co-produced by
Etheridge and Shooter Jennings (whose production credits include Brandi
Carlisle, Tanya Tucker, Charlie Crockett and, of course, his father Waylon
Jennings) and featuring her sharp band of guitarist and keyboard player Max
Hart, drummer Eric Gardner and bassist Erik Kertes, “Rise” soars as an intimate
and richly realized collection. At turns it’s celebratory and playful, as in
the explosive “Don’t You Want a Woman” (picked as the official rally song of
the Kansas City Current professional women’s soccer team) and “Tomboy”
(reclaiming the term as a badge of pride), both punctuated by Etheridge’s
hearty laugh. There’s “Matches,” a frisky ode to the guitars that sparked her
musical passion as a kid, steeped in the spirit of childhood hero Johnny Cash.
There’s the lusty honky-tonker “Davina,” its singalong chorus sounding as if it
could have been recorded in a raucous saloon. And there’s “If You Ever Leave
Me,” which starts with Etheridge cruising down Melrose in the ‘80s after first
arriving in L.A., but goes on to glory in her marriage with Linda Wallem. “If
you ever leave me, I’m coming too,” she sings, with another burst of laughter.
At others it’s contemplative, most profoundly and movingly in “Call You,” her
deeply affecting account of living in the wake of the opioid death of her son,
Beckett, in 2021. In it she looks deep in her soul and cherishes the
strengthening embrace of family, friends and community. This also filters
through “The Other Side of Blue,” a light-in-the darkness anthem co-written and
co-sung with Chris Stapleton. And at the end of the album she shines in the
warmth of “More Love,” written for and sung at her daughter Bailey’s wedding
last fall. Ultimately, it’s an album of acceptance and resilience. As she sings
in the title song:
You’re gonna fall to earth sometimes
You’re gonna taste the dirt sometimes
Then you’re gonna rise
MELISSA ETHERIDGE will donate two dollars ($2.00) from each ticket
sold to benefit her nonprofit charitable organization, the
Etheridge Foundation.
**Etheridge Foundation is on a mission to end the opioid crisis by
funding new research on transformative plant medicines and innovative
therapies that address the root causes of opioid use disorder. We
work to advance groundbreaking treatments that both treat opioid dependence
and help heal the underlying wounds that lead to addiction. To learn more
about
the Etheridge Foundation, visit https://ddec1-0-en-ctp.trendmicro.com:443/wis/clicktime/v1/query?url=www.etheridgefoundation.org&umid=7310d721-1398-4002-b390-8eaa23ab9519&rct=1773691161&auth=797b204fe8f9f85bc9e0abf5d8b47b2346e6ccdf-b72a6beb3ac22c4fe4ce867d3d797bc11f9c0a7c
Artist Presale: Wednesday, March 25 at 10am local
Live Nation Presale: Wednesday, March 25 at 12pm local
Local Presale: Wednesday, March 25 at 12pm local
Spotify Presale: Thursday, March 26 at 12pm local
Onsale: Friday, March 27 at 10am local