March 5 – Turntable Talk 12 : Melissa Was Hot From The Start

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 12^th instalment, meaning we’ve been doing this periodically for a year now! But for new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columns from other music fans and writers, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is First Time’s The Charm. We’ve asked our guests to pick a debut record by an artist that really impressed them…and maybe let us know if they feel the artist kept up the quality and momentum with subsequent works.

Today we start with Randy, from Mostly Music Covers, where he looks at cover songs in all their variety and glory. Being from Ontario, will his choice be a Canadian act?:

When I received the invitation from Dave to participate on this topic, several artists came to mind. With some I may have heard the name but not the music before but this one was a true eureka moment. “Bring Me Some Water” was the debut single from Melissa Etheridge, released in 1988. It was written by Etheridge, and it appeared on her eponymous album Melissa Etheridge.

Like many people I can sometimes put myself in the time and place where I first heard a song and subsequently made some kind of lasting connection with the artist. One of the most vivid of those memories is “Bring Me Some Water”. It was a sunny day in May, I was listening to Q107 while driving into downtown Toronto. As I am inching along on the York Street off ramp this song exploded from my radio.

The song is a cry out, “Can’t you see my baby’s got another lover”, “Can’t you see I’m burning alive”. It’s a slow build with a great guitar intro followed by the surly opening lines. I was just so struck with her amazing vocals and could feel her distress and pain. Three things occurred to me after I listened, one; I really, really like that song, two; that woman is going places and three; I’m buying that record tomorrow. I did buy the album and the next three she produced. She received her first of many Grammy nominations for that song. My wife and I were lucky enough to see her in Boston when she performed as part of a Berklee College music night at Tanglewood (with the Boston Pops) in 2014, she performed solo acoustic and was as dynamic and awesome as I had hoped. The song is now thirty-five years old, but honesty writing about the song just now I got chills down my spine and I’m pitching a fever. “Somebody bring me some water”!