Melissa Etheridge (born May 29, 1961) is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist. Her self-titled debut album Melissa Etheridge was released in 1988 and became an underground hit. In 1993, she released what would become her mainstream breakthrough album, Yes I Am. The album featured three Top 40 hits, including “I’m the Only One” (No. 8) and “Come to My Window” (No. 25), the latter which scored Etheridge her second Grammy award. In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. At the 2005 Grammy Awards, she made a return to the stage and, although bald from chemotherapy, performed a tribute to Janis Joplin with the song “Piece of My Heart”. In 2007, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “I Need to Wake Up” from the film An Inconvenient Truth. In September 2011, Etheridge received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (More from Wikipedia)
Melissa Etheridge is the first successful rock musician who is well known to be a lesbian. Melissa is from Leavenworth, Kansas and took up the guitar at age 8; she was performing in country music groups during her teenage years and later attended the Berklee College of Music. Melissa Etheridge sent a demo recording to Olivia Records in 1985 (they turned her down), and she also performed in lesbian bars in the Boston area while she was in college. However, Etheridge has never made an issue of her sexual orientation one way or the other, so she was not widely known to be a lesbian when she was signed by Island Records in 1986.
Melissa Etheridge’s first 6 albums have been certified Platinum, with her biggest seller being Yes I Am (1993), where the title is an evident confirmation of the rumors of her being a lesbian.
* * *
Melissa Etheridge has had a solid career over the years along with a devoted fan base. Except for her Christmas album, Melissa’s other 11 studio albums have all made the Top 25 on Billboard – including her 2012 release 4th Street Feeling – and have also charted in several other nations. Her 2001 album Skin was written after the breakup of her longtime relationship with filmmaker Julie Cypher that included two children fathered by David Crosby via artificial insemination; writing for Allmusic, Kerry L. Smith says of this album: “If ever there was a perfect breakup album, this is it.”
Melissa Etheridge had a memorable appearance at the 2005 Grammy Awards, where she performed “Piece of My Heart” in a tribute to Janis Joplin. She was slick bald at the time due to chemotherapy for breast cancer (from which she recovered); and the boldness of her appearance there – some years before Robin Roberts’ shorn locks on Good Morning America – only endeared her further to the American public.
* * *
Though there are other prominent openly gay and lesbian celebrities – Ellen DeGeneres comes immediately to mind, plus any number of actors and actresses – I am aware of no other household names among active rock musicians. While Melissa Etheridge and Elton John remain beloved performers, the same could be said of Liberace back in the 1950’s (though of course, he was not openly gay). Most other lesbian and gay rockers are well outside the mainstream – not that there is anything wrong with that.
