August 1st 1997

Kristen and Melanie

Hicksville

Rose's story of Friday evening

Pictures supplied by Kristen Udowitz

Amazing, astonishing, spectacular, divine.

If you had never seen Melanie in concert before you would certainly have thought you were in the presence of a miracle made flesh through her songs. Her voice from jump street was in perfect form.

She was simply at her finest last night on the field in Hicksville. Her voice was dense, smooth, limitless in its expanse. At it's extremes of power and grace it pierces my depths and ignites my soul.

When my friends met up with us they said they could see me glowing from the street almost a half a mile away and I am certain they were not exaggerating.

Melanie's new work performed live is spectacular.

Melanie and Beau after the show. Picture by Kristen Udowitz

Melanie's new work performed live is spectacular. it has a real blues-ey sensibility, but so much more than that. It is her own unique fusion of all the genres that have influenced her, folk; rock; blues; jazz, all melded together with her own unique style and little pinch of that sass that makes Melanie so endearing. Her emotional accents are as on target as ever and not a single point of feeling was passed over as old hat. She sings from a place in the soul, it is where she seems most at home. She really reaches the pure feeling of a song whether it is her own or someone else's composition.

Beau-Jarred was a smashing success, quite accomplished for his sixteen years. A real hit at the shows. Handsome, with his mother's looks, no doubt whose son he is. He also does weight training which leaves him to be easily mistaken for Adonis. Everyone is amazed to hear "that's Melanie's son!" His guitar playing is magnificent. With his musical talents I am certain he will have an amazingly wonderful journey ahead of him.

great, great, great, great, time

I had a great, great, great, great, time. Did I mention I had a great, great, great time. Sometimes I feel plagued by this strange hold this woman and her music has over me. But last night I was there in the music and it was a really truly perfect world, and I didn't want to leave it but the town has some ordnance about being out of there by 11 p.m. so Peter told her to make Ruby Tuesday her last song and so it was over.

Melanie who arrived around 6:30 p.m., in an aqua thunderbird was chatting with folks and signing autographs from the moment she got out of the car until well after the show was over. I got an autograph for you early in the evening. It is on a Xeroxed flyer. She wasn't thrilled with the flyer but when I said David will probably post it on his web page she said "oh yeah, great"! So sorry I set you up with another project. I don't know how well it will scan though since we only had a ball point pen at that point. Afterwards she got a kick out of hearing this is the High School Billy Joel attended. She reminisced about working with some of his band members, Liberty DeVitto and Russel Javers.

When home on cloud nine. She was so thrilled, because at these small local concerts people who have loved her all these years, but have not been part of this grapevine of where she's playing, what new album or CD is out etc. come out with all their old albums and tell her how much they love her and bring her all kinds of interesting memorabilia and it's like a great moment when your whole life comes together at one moment, one place clear as a bell, and it's beautiful.


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