Melissa Ferrick
She began her career singing and playing in coffeehouses in the Boston area. She received a great deal of publicity in 1991 when she replaced, at the last minute, the opening act for the singer Morrissey on tour; her emergence onto the national scene was around 1993, when she released her first studio album Massive Blur under a contract with Atlantic Records.
Ferrick’s relationship with Atlantic was rocky, and she was dropped after two albums; a few years later, in 1996, she—in her words—“bottomed out”, drinking and “taking a bunch of pills.” She soon returned to music, however, joining up with the indie label What Are Records?, which gave her a much greater degree of creative freedom. In 2000, Ferrick founded her own record label, Right On Records, in a move reminiscent of fellow “folk rocker” Ani DiFranco’s choice to release under Righteous Babe Records; a few of Ferrick’s more recent songs refer to the sometimes constraining nature of being signed with a major label. Since her departure from Atlantic, the rise in her popularity has been driven by her fan-base, by reviews in the independent and alternative press, and by word-of-mouth.
Ferrick’s lyrics are characterized by both by confessional and occasionally political content; she mostly accompanies herself on the guitar, which she often plays with rapid fingerpicking and complicated riffs. She has also experimented with a range of accompaniments, including, in particular, brass instruments.
Ferrick participated at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in the summer of 2006 and 2007.
