Spotlight: Melanie Rose Dyer

Music Promotion via MusicSubmit.com

Webpage: http://www.melaniedyer.com
Location: Nashville, TN, USA
Description: Melanie Rose Dyer's debut CD "The Long Way Around" was recorded in Nashville using some iconic musicians with a rousing "live sound" that showcases a heady distillation of original roots rock and R & B flavored "real life" songs.
Biography: Dyer grew up in a small rural town in Virginia, one of seven children in a house with one bathroom. (The house of her earliest years sat on cinder blocks with chickens under it, with an outdoor toilet, and a washtub for bathing the little ones.) Dyer was in the eighth grade when they got TV. Outside household-related chores, there was little to do but listen to music, read a lot of books and use one's imagination. Such activities were formative: Today one sibling designs gold jewelry; another teaches music. Melanie Rose's youthful musical intake was diverse: classical, gospel, R&B, folk,country and rock 'n' roll. Acts who caught her ear included Mahalia Jackson; Aretha Franklin; the Beatles, James Taylor and the music coming out of Memphis and Motown. Out of her Dad's radio the family absorbed a constant deluge of country and ole' timey music. She was drawn to performance and discovered a gift for it. After college, she moved to Colorado, entertaining on the ski resort circuit and finding an early fan in a young Gretchen Peters, who grew up in Boulder. She came to Nashville in 1981 with hardly a penny to her name,to write songs. She delivered on that goal: signing a publishing deal; writing with many of the top writers including Pat Alger (“Unanswered Prayers,” “Small Town Saturday Night”); hobnobbing with Music Row hit makers and power brokers. Then, as so often happens, life intervened. The cash flow and momentum never came. Various projects were initiated and aborted. While waiting tables with other aspiring musicians in 1986, she applied for an airline job on a lark, and that led to a 25-year career as a flight attendant. The full-time job consumed her time, but the income financed her publishing company, Fanetta Music, which has scored major cuts with artists such as folk icon Tom Rush (Appleseed Records), Rick Trevino (Sony-Epic) and Helen Darling (MCA-Decca). When husband Tom Robb, a renowned session bass player, was diagnosed with liver cancer, she became a caregiver, largely putting her musical aspirations on the back burner for two years until well after his death in 2006. Those days remain hard to talk about. But they provoked two intensely autobiographical songs that became the genesis of The Long Way Around. “The Lord Himself Came” is about her husband's death. “I'll Love Again” is about trying to learn to date again after two-plus decades of marriage and then two years of “very traumatic ... and very cathartic” recovery. After the former received some doubled-edged feedback – The song is incredible, but I don't know what you're going to do with it – she had a revelation: “It's my life story, it's me, and nobody can tell this story but me.” “So I think it was from there I just decided I was going to do this project,” Dyer says. “I think my husband dying at 57 was like a wake-up call that you need to go ahead and do what you want to do. …During the time that he was sick, I had a sense that I could hear time just rushing by my ears.” * * * Where she is now is a much better place, emotionally speaking. Dyer retired from the airline industry in September 2011 and is in personal, creative and business relationship with Daniel Cooper, a musician and inventor. The pair have launched a successful company, Coopercopia LLC, with the unique Cooperstand folding guitar stand. And they are co-producers of this marvelous new record, a heady distillation of Melanie Rose Dyer's life-so-far into a soulful, heartfelt, groove-infested brew Other than Dyer, only three writers are featured on The Long Way Around: Pat Alger, Marc Rossi and Cooper. Dyer was the sole writer on two of the songs. The album “is very in-house,” she says. “Songs that I felt could represent my style.” “Luckily for me,” she says with a winning smile, “there were lots of great musicians who wanted to play on my CD, and have fun.” The players include bandleader Glen Duncan on acoustic guitar, Mike Durham on electric guitar, Jack Pearson (Allman Brothers) on slide and resonator guitar, Mike Prentice and Don Kerce on bass, Paul Scholten on drums, Tim Lauer and Charles Judge on piano and B3, and the legendary Jim Horn on saxophone. Shaun Murphy of Little Feat fame sings backup on four tracks. Highlights include the rousing blues rock of the album opening “First Time in Forever”; the lushly produced “The Rain Is on My Side”; the poignantly cautious love ballad “If I Never Say”; and “Get Out of My Own Way,” a motivational kick in the pants. “The Lord Himself Came,” which could have been morbid or maudlin, instead exudes jubilation. Tom Robb's spirit hovers over these recordings, as it does in the home studio. When acclaimed guitarist and producer Don Potter, architect of the Judds sound, had visited during Tom's illness, he expected an oppressive atmosphere; instead he found the place “full of life.” And “full of life” serves as a pretty apt description for Melanie Dyer's music. “This is a totally in house independent project,” she says. “But the songs are just rich with real life. I'm proud of it.”
Press Release: Singer-Songwriter Melanie Rose Dyer, a mainstay on the Nashville songwriting scene (Tom Rush, Rick Trevino) has released a debut album of songs which puts her big alto voice center stage. Going into the studio with Grammy award winning session leader Glen Duncan the music is a blend of musical genres. ”The Long Way Around” has been a life time in the making for artist Melanie Rose Dyer. Three years ago when the project began, co-producer Daniel Cooper and Dyer went into the studio and said “Let’s just make some great music”. Bringing in musicians Jack Pearson (Allman Brothers) on slide guitar and legendary Jim Horn (Beatles, Beach Boys) on saxophone added tasteful and tasty flavorings to the already heady distillation of real life and groove based songs. This is a mature, complex record which is both inspirational and chock full of heart and soul. The heartfelt style of songwriting and singing on this project brings to mind the sophisticated blues styling of Bonnie Raitt, while incorporating the honest down to earth styles of Tracy Chapman and Reba McEntire. It is as impossible to classify as it is beautiful to listen to. Like so many great blues, country and folk projects the music is intensely personal. Two of the tunes on the project are inspired by losing a spouse to cancer and finding love again a few years later. “This is my life’s project–it kind of is my life story” Dyer says. Every moment of the album drips with profound soulfulness and is rounded out on four cuts by the bountiful soul back- up sounds of Shaun Murphy (the female voice of Little Feat). Mike Durham( formerly of Dave Matthews Band) puts his electric guitar definition on every song with powerful and definitive diversity. Charles Judge and Tim Lauer embellish the album with keyboards and B3, while Marc Prentice and Don Kerce contribute bass guitar. Super drummer Paul Scholten adds percussion and drums. Songwriter Hall of Fame Pat Alger says of Dyer: “Melanie has been one of my favorite collaborators for over 20 years. It is a reflection of the serendipity of the music business that this album may be the first time most people will get to hear her and her wonderful songwriting. Now you’ll realize what you’ve been missing all this time.” It is an album for anyone who craves real music. It has been a long time coming, but it is well worth the wait. Available on ITunes and CD Baby “”There’s nothing more American than a woman with a big voice bred in the South singing songs of love, hope, sorrow and uncertainty over gospel-tinged R&B grooves, and that’s just what the listener gets from the first beat of this record”.