Melissa Etheridge is getting ready to bring out her first album in five years, and new single Bein’ Alive reflects on her long career, battling challenges, and surviving.
Rise, the seventeenth album of Etheridge’s career, will be out on 27th March, and the opening song Bein’ Alive features a video that takes us back through her childhood and long career.
Etheridge says the new song is “a celebration of the ups and downs of what it takes to survive.”
Bein’ Alive follows on from Matches which Eltheridge shared a few weeks ago.
The singer-songwriter’s career and life has certainly had many ups and downs, and she’s shown she’s a true survivor.
Born in Leavenworth, Kansas she went on to study music at Berklee College of Music and began playing in clubs around Boston. She dropped out after three semesters and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her rock ‘n roll dreams.
She was signed to Island Records, but her first attempt at recording an album was knocked back for being too polished. After returning to the studio in 1988 Etheridge returned with her self-titled debut record, which included the massive hits Somebody Bring Me Some Water, Similar Features and Like The Way I Do.
The singer-songwriter went on to have further success with Brave and Crazy (1989) and Never Enough (1992).
In 1993 Etheridge publicly came out declaring she was a lesbian, and released her fourth album Yes I Am. It included the songs Come To My Window and I’m the Only One.
Etheridge had a long term relationship with Julie Cypher. The couple had two children, later sharing that rock musician David Crosby had been their sperm donor. The couple separated in 2000.
From 2002 until 2010 Etheridge was in a relationship with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, during their relationship Michaels gave birth to twins. During their relationship Etheridge had a public battle with breast cancer.
In 2014 Etheridge married her partner Linda Wallem, who is an actor, writer and producer. In 2020 tragedy stuck when her son Beckett Cypher died aged just 21, with his family revealing he had struggled with opiate addiction.
Melissa Etheridge spoke to OUTinPerth’s Zoe Carter back in 2012, and also chatted to Graeme Watson in 2016. She delivered an energetic show in Perth in 2024.
