“They are saying that you simply don’t know as a baby.”
Melissa Etheridge, one in every of rock music’s nice feminine performers and an LGBTQ activist, shared what it was like rising up in Kansas — a state the place HB 2009, a invoice that will take away draconian intercourse legal guidelines from the books, not too long ago died in committee — throughout the Sixties and early ‘70s.
“I’m really very grateful for rising up there. Within the ‘60s, it was an in-between state. We weren’t North, we weren’t South,” she mentioned.
The youngest of two daughters — her mom Elizabeth, a pc guide, and her father John, a faculty trainer — Etheridge was born in Leavenworth, Kansas.
“My mom’s household was from the South. We have been from Arkansas. I noticed racism there proper up entrance and up shut,” Etheridge instructed the Tucson Sentinel forward of a live performance on the Fox Theatre. “However in Kansas, the place I grew up, the inhabitants was in all probability 1 / 4 black. All of us went to highschool collectively and lived collectively. We have been very built-in in our city.”
Her identified world then additionally included Fort Leavenworth, the second oldest lively U.S. Military submit west of Washington, D.C.
“A number of children, Military brats, from different nations have been there. A few of my finest buddies have been of various races.”
* * *
The music bug bit early on. Etheridge started taking guitar classes at eight. Even at such a younger age she by no means questioned her life’s calling.
“Oh yeah. I by no means had some other dream. I might hearken to music and simply wish to make it,” she mentioned. “And, once I realized the best way to make it, I wished to do increasingly… It’s simply been this fixed since I used to be three years outdated.”
As an adolescent, she began to play in native nation bands. It was a magical time of self-expression, but the proficient younger musician was unable to put her soul naked.
“After all, once I was in highschool discovering that I used to be homosexual, within the Nineteen Seventies, we definitely didn’t say something about it,” Etheridge recalled. “It was unspeakable.”
* * *
Residing in a rustic the place a big swath of the citizenry actively search to show again the fingers of time — in keeping with the ACLU (Jan. 2023) over 120 payments geared toward proscribing LGBTQ rights have been launched by politicians thus far this yr — Etheridge selected to observe the yellow brick highway in the direction of the Emerald Metropolis.
“I positively needed to depart and go to the massive metropolis: Kansas Metropolis, then Boston and Los Angeles,” she mentioned.
In Boston, whereas attending the Berklee School of Music, Etheridge performed the native membership circuit earlier than deciding to drop out after three semesters to pursue her dream in Los Angeles.
In January 1993, Etheridge got here out publicly as a lesbian. Later that yr she launched “Sure I Am” (Island Information), a pivotal album that gained nationwide and worldwide recognition.
“Quickly thereafter, they embraced me and LGBT there in my hometown,” she says, proudly. “Leavenworth, Kansas, may be very totally different. It’s an attractive place that also continues to work for that.”
* * *
Regardless of the zeitgeist, the outdated guard continues to hurl down recriminations.
“I see the struggles. I perceive the concern in those that has been ingrained. The concern of change.” Etheridge mentioned, “It’s all the time unhappy seeing individuals making choices out of concern.”
“It’s an outdated Darwinian mind-set: Survival of the fittest. ‘There’s us and there may be them.’ However, that’s not true,” Etheridge mentioned. “Survival by cooperation is what’s true.”
As somebody who has walked down “Stranger Street” — a observe off of 2014’s “This Is M.E.” (ME Information) through which she sings, “I can not keep in Kansas / I’ve gotta cross the road” — Etheridge, ever the optimist, sees a path ahead.
“Oh, sure, sure, sure. We’re already on it. To actually put it into perspective, the rationale you see these draconian legal guidelines — ‘let’s return, let’s take these rights away’ — all of those fearful issues, is as a result of we’re shifting ahead,” she mentioned.
“We’re shifting ahead and out in freedom and equality and variety.” Etheridge mentioned, joyously, “It shines. And it shines on everyone.”
* * *
In 1988, the lead single off of Etheridge’s debut album “Carry Me Some Water” garnered her first Grammy nomination. But, the highway out of Kansas hasn’t all the time been paved with gold.
“There have been lot’s of ups and downs,” Etheridge says, laughingly. “However, it has been a steady journey. When you might have finished it this lengthy, you notice it’s not in regards to the little golden issues, the trinkets you get alongside the way in which. It’s in regards to the journey.”
Staying true to her Heartland rock ethos — a plain-spoken style characterised by a conviction that music has a function past simply leisure — Etheridge is a believer.
“Sure,” she mentioned, unabashedly. “Music is likely one of the issues that has all the time modified the world.”
* * *
Via the course of a profession that spans 4 many years, Melissa Etheridge has seen fireplace and rain.
In Might 2020, Etheridge and her household suffered an unimaginable loss.
Melissa’s son Beckett died.
“I beloved you / After which I misplaced you / And I’ll by no means be the identical.” – “I Will By no means Be The Identical”
After breaking an ankle as a younger teenager, Beckett was prescribed painkillers. The extremely addictive nature of prescription opioids led Beckett to substance abuse — regardless of entry to a number of therapy amenities — and finally to his dying at simply 21 years of age.
Standing as a beacon of hope shining brightly by a window — whose impetus was the generosity and outpouring of affection and compassion from Melissa’s followers within the wake of Beckett’s dying — the Etheridge Basis was established.
“The mission of the Etheridge Basis is to assist deliver knowledge and analysis to the world about psychedelics and plant medication and nature-based cures to assist ease and resolve our opioid disaster.” Etheridge mentioned, in a tone that’s directly buoyant as it’s wistful.
A survivor — in October 2004, Etheridge was identified with breast most cancers, underwent surgical procedure and chemotherapy — she continues to attract power and inspiration to maneuver ahead from the identical wellspring that nourished a younger woman’s desires, many moons in the past, again in Kansas.
The Grammy Award-winning rockstar will quickly embark on Summer time Tour ‘23, a large 44-date trek all through North America.
“Then, I’ve a e-book popping out in September: ‘Speaking To My Angels.’” Etheridge added. “I’ve been scripting this e-book for a few years about our lives, spirit and spirituality.”
A documentary movie about prisons — whose working title is Leavenworth — can also be within the works.
Town of Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth have 5 prisons — federal, navy, non-public and state run amenities — positioned within the space.
“I used to play in them once I was younger. And now I’m going to do a live performance within the ladies’s jail.” she mentioned in regards to the mission.
In October 2022, Etheridge made her off-Broadway debut with “My Window – A Journey Via Life” — a night of anecdotes and music — to enthusiastic audiences.
“I haven’t acquired the complete greenlight, but. However, I hope to be on Broadway the final a part of this yr.”