Melody Gardot

Melody Gardot /ɡɑrˈdoʊ/ (born February 2, 1985) is a Grammy-nominated American singer, writer and musician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though she considers herself a "citizen of the world".^[1] She has been influenced by such blues and jazz artists as Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and George Gershwin as well as Latin music artists such as Caetano Veloso.^[2] Her music has been compared to that of Nina Simone.^[3]

While cycling in Philadelphia in November 2003^[10] she was hit by a car whose driver had ignored a red traffic light. In the accident she suffered serious head and spinal injuries and her pelvis was broken in two places. Because of these severe injuries she was confined to her hospital bed for a year and had to remain lying on her back. As a further consequence of her injuries she had to re-learn simple tasks such as brushing her teeth and walking. The most noticeable effect of the neural injuries she suffered is that she was left hyper-sensitive to both light and sound, therefore requiring her to wear dark sunglasses at nearly all times to shield her eyes.^[7] The accident also resulted in both long and short term memory problems and difficulty with her sense of time. Gardot has described coping with this as like "climbing Mount Everest every day" as she often wakes with no memory of what she has to do that day.^[4]

Initially prompted by an attending physician who believed music would help her brain injury drastically improve, Gardot began writing music after her accident^[11] and now often speaks and advocates in favour of using music for therapy. The accident had damaged the neural pathways between the brain's two cortices, which control perception and higher mental function, and made Gardot (in her own words) "a bit of a vegetable."^[12] As well as making it very hard for her to speak or communicate properly, she found it difficult to recall the right words to express her feelings.