Melissa Greener
Nashville, Tennessee, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2004 | INDIE | AFM
Music
Press
"Melissa Greener is one of those rare artists who appear on the scene with all their talents maturely developed. Blessed with a glorious, outsized, and utterly distinctive voice, Greener is an accomplished guitarist and an arresting songwriter. The music is strikingly original and impressively varied, featuring strong, catchy melodies in strange and brooding voicings. Melissa Greener is a pro." - Acoustic Guitar Magazine
"Dwelling is a beautifully symmetric work, that makes writing songs look like painting. Words for Greener are pigments. This demure album contains much beauty, which she delivers with vicarious emotion and conviction. It is a spirited album with basic instrumentation and sparse as it may seem, knows how to give the just ambience. A very beautiful cd!" - Alt Country Forum (Netherlands)
"Be awake and alert and you'll grasp the Technicolor grandeur contained within Greener's DWELLING. Via tightly edited lyrics Greener succeeds in painting superb portraits of the human condition." - Arthur Wood, Maverick Music Magazine (UK)
"Melissa Greener - Heiress to modern folk-rock territory blazed by Ani, Dar and Lucy, Enveloping the listener with a warm confident voice and lyrical intrigue. The soul of a poet, the rhythm of a rocker!" - Michael Terry, Uncle Calvin's - Dallas, Texas
"Melissa has the package. Lovely melodies, a beautiful voice and a
stunning stage presence. But, what tops the cake are her excellent
guitar skills. She creates memorable arrangements that definitely
rise above the crowd." - Roger Allan, KGSR, Austin, TX
"I can't even explain what it felt like to listen to her. Her song had me in tears... her way of putting words together... her voice... all of it... it took me back in time. It reminded me of how I felt the first time I heard Joni Mitchell perform. I knew, listening to Melissa, that I was standing in the presence of greatness." - Arlene Levine, President South Florida Broward Folk Club
"I love Melissa Greener. She writes and sings with loads of emotion, authority and skill. There are a great many things to recomend her cd, but "Long Road Down" alone is worth the price of admission. She is really something." - John Jennings, record producer, musician
"It Gets Harder To Leave Texas Every Time is Melissa's song now. I feel like John Prine listening to Bonnie Raitt sing Angel From Montgomery." - Jonathan Byrd, singer-songwriter
" In all the years (Austin's) Chicago House has been closed, Melissa Greener is the first person to make me wish that I still had a venue - so that I could have a personal hand in the success that she will, no doubt, soon enjoy.
"Melissa has the distinction of being the only artist I’ve ever heard, who took a couple of listens before I even noticed her sweet voice and fine lyrics! I had NEVER before been so taken with someone's guitar picking style and technique that I didn't pay any attention to their songs!!! I watched as every picker in the room - both male and female - snapped to attention with admiration when she played. Truly a ‘musician's musician’, she effortlessly cast off licks others would kill to be able to finger their way through... and, at such a young age! It was on the second listen that I really ‘fell’ for her as I discovered the outstanding singer-songwriter that she is.
“Possessing an outstanding stage presence, a true beauty (both inside and out), she is a natural, and a consummate professional when gracing the stage. Melissa Greener is the total package." - Peg Miller - Austin's late, oft-lamented Chicago House
"Austinite singer-songwriter Melissa Greener is off to a fierce start with her debut self-release 'Fall From the Sky'. Greener acheives a carismatic sound with 10 gorgeous songs. From the toe-tapping "Same Big Sky" to the enaging title song, 'Fall From the Sky' is a stunning effort from a blooming talent." - Calla-Wind Music
"For those who couldn't make it to 'Artistic Blends' in Fort Worth, Texas last night to hear Melissa Greener, let me start off with saying: 'I am so sorry.' You missed a great show! Artistic Blends is first and foremost, a coffee house. So, we had the usual compliment of mixers, blenders, grinders, latte machines, etc to contend with. And of course, the house lights were fully 'on' which doesn't really set the "stage" apart from the rest of the room. That's about it for the negative aspects.
"Melissa sounded great! Her voice is hard to describe. Sometimes dark and dusky, at other times light and airy. The only thing that is NOT hard to describe is her vocal range. Expansive. Massive. Powerful. She had complete mastery of her voice and that wonderful Greenfield guitar that she plays. From soft, slow ballads to driving, power-house rock, Melissa showed her versatility and professionalism through each and every song. Her music was so well rehearsed and crafted that she memerized her audience, including a few small children that were in the audience. At one point Melissa realized that she was playing to a predominently musician-based audience, and slyly announced that is was no added pressure. I wouldn't have wanted to be in her shoes! Melissa played two full sets, starting at 8 pm and not ending until after 10. Her audience was held spell-bound throughout the entire performance. She played several of the songs off of her new CD (which was also conveniently for sale!) as well as several 'new' songs. One of them, she announced, she just HAD to play because she had just finished writing it, and hoped that she could remember all the words. (She did!) This was followed by a request for "anything by Joni Mitchell." She immediately played a flawless, and absolutley fantastic rendition of 'Woodstock' which she dedicated to all the 'old hippies' in the group, we sat spell-bound and silent as she totally took control of the song. Even though her own material is exceedingly strong and well-written, this particular performance is what I will remember from the evening. All in all, it was a magical evening. Great music, and an audience filled with friends. I can't wait to hear Melissa again, and hope that she can make it back to the DFW region soon. Thanks to Jim and Trish Whelan for making the evening possible, and to Melissa for the engaging evening. I hope you will all get the chance to hear Melissa in person, very soon. She has the potential to 'make it' in the music business.
Check her out at www.melissagreener.com
> Jim McCrain
"Jim McCrain" <jim@mccrain.net> wrote in message
news:<q3olp1db3vgjj16gq6c1esmd3viu9hln0g@4ax.com>...
- Jim McCrain
"I saw Melissa Greener last night. She is quite a presence as you no doubt know, and a very creative and accomplished songwriter. I caught her acoustic set at a small venue here in Austin last night. Broke a string during her set during one of her many alternate tunings and took that time to tell us about your guitars. She eschewed the PA and played through a little AER amp so you know the sound was good.
"Your guitar just about stole the show for me, and it served her agressive and flawless playing well. The tone was bell-like as your web page says, and every single note stood for itself. Such a pleasure to listen to such an instument. Good luck to you."
Frank McCarthy
Austin, Texas
- Frank McCarthy
Discography
2016 - SOLO-ELECTRIC (live concert album recorded in Germany)
2013 - Transistor Corazón
2010 - Dwelling
2006 - Fall From The Sky
Photos
Bio
Nashville based Americana artist Melissa Greener is a singer, songwriter and guitarist of the highest order. Her songs summon their truth from mountain ranges, holy places, deserts, oceans and forests, or the lonely stretch of blacktop from Detroit to Austin. Impressive vocal chops wrap quirkily crafted narrative that “paints superb portraits of the human condition" (Maverick Music Magazine -UK). “Words for Greener are pigments”, finely placed and skipped like stones across the surface of the deep-pocket groove of her raucous electric tremolo guitar.
Greener grew up in Detroit with an alluring cacophony of Mo-town, standard torch ballads, and 1960’s Laurel Canyon records. The unique brew emerged as the fermentation of a classically trained soprano mother, who sang in the lounge of the Playboy Club, and a politically bent hippie father. She savored the lyrical stylings of modernist poets whose books she discovered in her junior high school days. Greener muses, “I had an English teacher in the seventh grade who introduced us to poetry. I think it back-fired on him, because I would skip class to hide out in the library reading Dylan Thomas, Robert Service, Dickenson and Yeats.”
During her years of living in Austin, Greener discovered a solace; in the Medina River, in the rolling Texas Hill Country, and in the outlaw songwriters of the region. Texas left a permanent mark on her - in psyche and song - so much so that Guy Clark could relate and became a regular songwriting partner with Greener through the last years of his life.
Ever after the next adventure, Greener has trekked mountain ranges in the Alps, Slovakia and Tibet. She's pedaled a bicycle solo across Canada and lived in a rural village in China. “I once sailed so far into the Mediterranean Sea I couldn't see land, and have seen so many stars in an Egyptian desert I couldn't see the sky.” Her current adventure is a full-time international touring schedule performing in some of the world’s finest theaters and festivals as well as teaching workshops on songwriting, creativity and performance.
Band Members
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