Saturday 29 November 2014

Shabbat Music Break

This is the last in my month-long series of women in rock whom I believe have been snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Today's entry is Melissa Etheridge

Melissa became eligible for admission last year, but has not yet received a nomination. Male fronted bands who began in the same era as did she, including The Red Hot Chili Peppers (inducted) and Green Day (nominated this year), have already found their way onto the committee's radar.

She is a two time Grammy award winner for for Best Rock Performance female and she has been nominated another thirteen times in various Grammy categories. Her 1993 album Yes I Am spent 138 weeks on the charts and was certified 6x platinum. As a matter of fact, her first five albums went platinum or higher. Her discography boasts of fifteen long play albums, mostly consisting of songs that she herself composed. She also won the Academy Award for Best Song in 2007 for "I Need to Wake Up" from the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. 

Melissa has been a fearless social advocate for gay rights, the environment, and breast cancer awareness. Her driving performance of Janis Joplin's Piece of My Heart while bald and weak from chemotherapy stopped the 2005 Grammy Awards and is still considered to be one of the all-time greatest live performances. Melissa is still a fixture on tour, hard-rocking it out with both her signature six and twelve-string Ovations, and it is my opinion that her induction into the Rock Hall is only a matter of time.

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