{"id":393636,"date":"2026-04-15T16:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/393636\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:05:10","slug":"lilith-fair-didnt-have-a-place-for-melissa-etheridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/393636\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilith Fair Didn\u2019t \u2018Have a Place\u2019 for Melissa Etheridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Music History<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A series where artists share their musical firsts and lasts.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI started making money by playing in bands at eleven or twelve. I got up, sang two songs, and they paid me $10.\u201d
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Anna Krajec\/Michael Ochs Archives, Daniel Knighton, Amy E. Price), FilmMagic (J. Merritt, Debra L Rothenberg), Clayton Call\/Redferns\n <\/p>\n

Melissa Etheridge\u2019s 2026 has been a banner year so far. Prior to the release of her 17th \u2014 damn! \u2014 studio album, Rise, the singer-songwriter and activist received her inaugural nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which she admits \u201cmeant more to me than I thought it did.\u201d (She didn\u2019t make the final cut this time around, so we\u2019ll all have to campaign harder next year.) You can catch Etheridge as she embarks on an extensive tour throughout the country this spring and summer, giving us the perfect excuse to rock out to \u201cCome to My Window\u201d with a can of ros\u00e9 in hand. Before the craziness of the tour kicked in, Etheridge joined us for our latest episode of \u201cMusic History,\u201d in which she discussed how unexpectedly freeing her first label deal was, her television debut in David Letterman\u2019s freezing-cold studio, and the Lilith Fair appearance that never was.<\/p>\n

I had a sister four years older than me \u2014 she was deeply into the Beatles. The Beatles had just hit when I was about 3 or 4, and I remember the album Beatles \u201965 and the way that the songs sounded. \u201cThe Night Before<\/a>\u201d would make me feel this certain way as a kid. I don\u2019t think people understand how groundbreaking George Martin was for the Beatles. I was always a John Lennon fan. My sister was all about Paul McCartney, but I always preferred John. I thought he was an amazing songwriter and person.<\/p>\n

My father, when I was 8 years old, brought home a guitar for my sister. I had already been jumping around my house. I found an old badminton racquet and I watched The Archies on television and I remember wanting to be Reggie. I wanted to play guitar. So when he brought one home, I thought, Oh, that\u2019s for me. Then he said, \u201cNo.\u201d And the guitar teacher said, \u201cYou\u2019re too young.\u201d I was like, What? They said, \u201cYour fingers are going to bleed and you\u2019ll stop.\u201d They finally allowed me to take a lesson, and I never stopped. The first song I learned with notes was \u201cTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

I started \u201cwriting\u201d when I was 10, basically copying other songs. My grandmother passed away when I was 12, and up until then, she was pretty much the only one that would listen to me. She had been getting sick \u2014 she had cancer, and back then you didn\u2019t talk about cancer. So she was just in bed. I didn\u2019t know why I would go sing to her. I played this little song I had seen in a book of children\u2019s verses, made up a little song to one of the verses, and played that for her. She said to me, \u201cOh, Missy, that\u2019s so beautiful. When I die, will you put that in my casket?\u201d No one ever said she was dying. No one. They didn\u2019t talk about it back then. That made me realize, Oh my goodness, she\u2019s actually dying.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, she passed away. I wrote down the words and gave them to my aunt. I couldn\u2019t do it myself. But then I went home and wrote my first real song. It was called \u201cLonely As a Child,\u201d and it had the same melody and chords. So that was my first song. \u201cLonely is a child waiting for his mother to come home \/ Lonely is a child waiting for his mother, but a mother he has none.\u201d It\u2019s about the war. It was a full folk song.<\/p>\n

I started making money by playing in bands at 11 or 12. I got up, sang two songs, and they paid me $10 or whatever. I was like, I\u2019m all for this, man. This is good. When I started having money, my parents would literally drop me off at the record store and come back and get me three hours later. I remember getting Bonnie Raitt\u2019s \u201cRunaway.\u201d My father previously bought me Carole King\u2019s Tapestry and the Beatles\u2019 Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That was a big one for me.<\/p>\n

Mine was a story of things opening up little by little but always going in the right direction. A man named Bob Hamill came to Leavenworth, my hometown in Kansas, and he put together a talent show at the mall that my parents used to drop me off at. He put a bunch of kids together in this variety-show act. That\u2019s the first time I felt like, Oh, this guy thinks I can do that part. No one was ever very effusive or \u201cYou\u2019re going to make it,\u201d but things kept growing. Years later, my manager at the time and I had a joke: We were always like, \u201cSomeday we\u2019re going to have that bottle of Champagne and celebrate that we made it.\u201d And we never did. It\u2019s that slow. You can get a manager, but it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to go any further. You can get signed to a record deal, but it doesn\u2019t mean your record is ever going to get out. When I was nominated for a Grammy, where I didn\u2019t win but I got to perform, I felt like I won. It was like, Whoa, okay. I\u2019ve made it to a certain point that I can look back and go, \u201cI\u2019ve done something here.\u201d<\/p>\n

My manager found me playing at a small little tiny women\u2019s bar in Pasadena. I\u2019m playing two different women\u2019s bars, actually, one in Long Beach as well, five nights a week. So I\u2019m making $25 a night, sometimes $50, plus tips. He found me because his wife played soccer with some girls that would come down to see me \u2014 that\u2019s how it goes. He had managed Bread and Deniece Williams, a for-real manager. So he starts bringing record companies to me and he says, \u201cYou know what? Stay here. You\u2019re making money. You\u2019re working on your songs. This is good.\u201d And for the next four years, every single record company in Los Angeles came to see me: Warner Bros., Virgin America, and so on. They would come in \u2014 some of them would come back the next week, and some of them would come back for a whole month. Then they\u2019d say, \u201cWe just don\u2019t hear a hit.\u201d They were surrounded by lesbians. It was obvious I was a lesbian. This is 1985 and no one\u2019s out and nobody\u2019s a lesbian. I don\u2019t know if that had much to do with it. I\u2019m not going to blame that.<\/p>\n

But I wasn\u2019t what they wanted until a producer told me, \u201cYou know who needs to hear you? Chris Blackwell at Island Records. He signed Bob Marley and brought U2 into the world.\u201d This producer told Chris, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go listen to a girl down the street,\u201d and he drove him an hour to Long Beach. Chris is like, \u201cYou\u2019ve kidnapped me. What are you doing?\u201d But he came in and heard four songs. He looked at me and goes, \u201cI want you on my record label. I don\u2019t know why you\u2019re not signed.\u201d That was it. Boom. This person signed me right there. From the get-go, he said, \u201cJust be that girl I saw in the bar,\u201d and he supported that for six albums over ten years. I never had an A&R guy. I just turned in the music and he was 100 percent supportive. I don\u2019t think he was ever really a fan of my music, but he understood my talent and he got out of the way. I really appreciated him. I think he wasn\u2019t afraid of me being gay. That didn\u2019t throw him off at all. He saw a girl who could write songs. He saw a powerful voice and that I could perform.<\/p>\n

David Letterman \u2014 this is back when he was Late Night. He was known for bringing the cool music people on. If you go back and find that clip, you\u2019ll hear David say, \u201cIn her national television debut, this is Melissa Etheridge.\u201d His studio was always freezing cold. If you talk to anybody, they\u2019ll say it\u2019s beyond colder than any studio ever. You had to wear a winter coat there in the summer. But he was very kind, and I\u2019ve been on his show many times. I played with his band and had a really good time. I always liked going back and playing with them.<\/p>\n

Something I\u2019ve learned that my manager used to tell me is \u201cNobody remembers whether you win or not, unless you\u2019ve got five Grammys in your hands. But they remember if you perform.\u201d So I would say the first time I performed had more of an impact than the first time I won. I played \u201cBring Me Some Water.\u201d I think I had sold 60,000 albums, but I was being played on this cool radio station in Los Angeles and got a lot of exposure through that. I was at the Grammys for Best Rock Female Vocalist. It was Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Toni Childs \u2014 if you remember her \u2014 and Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor. Best Rock Female Vocalist isn\u2019t even a category now, and let me complain. They would say, \u201cOh, there\u2019s not enough women,\u201d which always mystified me. I was like, What do you mean there\u2019s not?<\/p>\n

Pat and Tina didn\u2019t show up, but the other three of us were there, and they wanted to combine us three together in one performance. My manager said \u201cno.\u201d He held out. I was like, Oh my God, I might lose any chance of doing it. But he really held his ground. So Toni Childs, Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor, and myself, each of us got to do a full song. That was the year that Tracy Chapman took off. It was a really big female year, and I got to sing my song. I went from 60,000 records to, like, 500,000 records basically overnight. That performance was huge for me. Now, the first time I won a Grammy was my third album for \u201cAin\u2019t It Heavy,\u201d which is not one of my big hits. I mean, it\u2019s okay, but it was off-camera. So it was great to get the hardware, but I don\u2019t have a big connection to that win.<\/p>\n

Lilith Fair was right after my big fourth and fifth albums, which were Yes I Am and Your Little Secret. I had just finished my big world tour and they were putting this thing together and I wanted to get up and be a guest or whatever in Los Angeles. I put that out there. And the answer that came back to me was \u2018We don\u2019t have a place for you.\u2019 It\u2019s funny how many people tell me that they saw me at Lilith Fair, but I wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

I tell this to my children\u2019s friends and anyone I want to impress. It was in the early 2000s and I was getting an award or something. This young girl was also getting an award, and she came up to me and said her parents took her to a Melissa Etheridge concert, saw me play the 12-string guitar, and that\u2019s why she learned to play the guitar. And her name was Taylor Swift. She was really the first to just walk up and go, \u201cI\u2019m a huge fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family Guy<\/a>. If there\u2019s any sort of lesbian scene, they\u2019re going to want to play \u201cCome to My Window.\u201d It becomes this sort of thing. But one of my other favorites was Parenthood. I did a Christmas album where I wrote some original songs, and they played \u201cGlorious.\u201d It\u2019s a really sweet moment when she\u2019s in the hospital, and it\u2019s well done.<\/p>\n

After the dress rehearsal, I discovered that my show was four hours long and that I should probably cut it down. So after the first preview, it was probably two and a half hours. It was still really long. I got to tell you: The Broadway thing, I have such respect for those people. It\u2019s such hard work, and people are like, \u201cOh, you\u2019re going to do that again.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cNo.\u201d From a performance standpoint, it was really, really difficult to go in there every single day and do the same thing over and over. It\u2019s routine, and there\u2019s things I have to stick with. I can\u2019t eat two hours before, and sleep is extremely important.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n With David Crosby.
\n Photo: Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic\n <\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s a funny thing. This was the early \u201990s. It was rare to be gay \u201cout,\u201d and to have kids was unheard of. My girlfriend had been adopted, so she wanted her kids to know who the parent was. I said, \u201cThat\u2019s great, but I don\u2019t want someone who wants to be a parent.\u201d I want to be the other parent. Brad Pitt was a good friend of mine and would have been the obvious choice at the time. But Brad really wanted kids and loved kids. I was like, I can\u2019t say, \u201cCan I have your child?\u201d So we were looking around, and I knew David and his wife, Jan. We had gone to visit them in Hawaii, and they had just had their son Django and were so grateful. We told them how we were thinking about it, and Jan actually said, \u201cWell, why don\u2019t you use David?\u201d And David\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, well, okay.\u201d We thought about it and came back and we said, \u201cHey, if you\u2019re serious, that\u2019s perfect.\u201d They had their child and didn\u2019t want to raise anybody else. Our children called him \u201cBio Dad\u201d for a while. It was more like an uncle relationship. It was perfect.<\/p>\n

Every year, I\u2019d be like, Whatever. I did see a change once Mr. Jann Wenner was not in charge anymore. But it really was out of my mind. It\u2019s not something that I focused on. When I did get the call, I was moved. Wow, I\u2019m being recognized by my peers and by the whole rock-and-roll community. And that meant a lot. Grammys and Oscars \u2014 those are great. This is, like, a lifetime thing. I understand how difficult it is to say who belongs in the Rock Hall because rock and roll is an idea; it\u2019s not just a specific genre. Rock and roll is a feeling. I\u2019d love to see Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Armatrading, and Fanny also get inducted.<\/p>\n


\n See All<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n