Melina | |
Number of songs: 1 | Total weeks on charts: 13
Appearing in a total number of: 1 charts | Total period running: 84 days
Appearing in a total number of: 1 charts | Total period running: 84 days
Songs by Melina
 |
Biography
In the mystical, starry cover art of Melina’s breakthrough full length recording Wishing On Love, we see a silhouette of someone sitting on the hood of a sedan, gazing into the night sky with anticipation, perhaps in search of fresh and transformational magic.
From the sensual and soulful first lyrics of “Maybe Not Today,” the album’s opening track and debut single, the San Antonio, Texas based singer – who emerges on the national stage after several years of headlining festivals and clubs in her hometown – delivers promisingly on that hope. Launching an intimate yet powerful relationship with the listener, she brings her multiple shades of amazing (with touches of pop, jazz, R&B, rock and gospel) to a colorful mix of seven originals and beautiful new arrangements of the pop classics “Superstar,” “At Last” and “Landslide.”
Helping guide her lifelong dreams and evolving musical vision is producer guitarist Paul Brown, a two time Grammy winner with over 60 #1 smooth jazz radio hits who has brought his Midas touch in the studio over the years to R&B and jazz vocal greats like Luther Vandross, Al Jarreau, George Benson and Jonathan Butler.
As she was building momentum with a series of performances in San Antonio last year, Melina opened for popular saxophonist Jessy J at the annual Divas of Jazz Festival. Melina had started making demos of original material and was seeking a top-flight producer to help develop her sound. When she learned that Jessy’s three hit albums and numerous #1 singles were produced by Brown, she emailed the producer some of her songs. Brown was struck immediately by both the emotional subtlety and power of her voice, and invited her to come to Los Angeles to work with him.
“It’s always a thrill to discover new talent,” he says. “When it comes to vocalists, it’s rare to find someone like Melina who is at that stage where she’s just starting her career; she’s not jaded and hasn’t gone through ten previous producers and managers. She sent me some of her early demos and we talked back and forth. I heard a little Linda Ronstadt and some Adele in a voice that’s seriously as big as Texas. I thought it would be cool to try some different things. Given the right songs I knew something big could come out of these sessions. I invited her to come to L.A. to work with me, called some of the guys I write with regularly, and we had a lot of fun making it happen. For me, working with an artist like Melina was personally liberating because it’s like the pop and soul music I grew up with, presented through her beautiful voice in an inspiring new way.”
Everything Melina and Brown worked on was purely on spec at first, but as their professional relationship grew and the tracks took shape, it was clear that Melina brought a refreshing authenticity to the table as an emerging, multi-faceted R&B/jazz vocalist and songwriter. Brown called in some of his big guns, starting with lyricist Dax Reynosa, who co-wrote “Maybe Not Today” with Lew Laing; “Stay With Me Tonight,” “I Will Be Loving You” and “Halfway Gone” with multi-instrumentalist Marco Basci, Brown and Melina; and “If I Never Told You” and the title track “Wishing On Love” with Brown. Other top L.A. studio stalwarts on Wishing On Love include bassist Sekou Bunch, keyboardist Phillipe Saisse and longtime Brown collaborator Jeff Carruthers, who plays keys, bass and drums and creates a seductive, organic soul arrangement of “At Last,” shifting its tempo from a 6/8 blues into 4/4 time. Brown’s wife Jacqui, an author and songwriter, contributes the heartfelt inspirational mother to daughter tune “Walk With You.”
Melina had never been to L.A. before and has been for the past months, in a dual mode of working hard while feeling like she’s in a daze from the reality that her longtime dreams are finally coming to fruition. “I had always been singing since I was a little girl, and grew up listening to everything from country to rock and R&B,” she says. “As I got older I would sing at weddings, sang and played guitar in church choirs and sang with a lot of bands also featuring a male vocalist. I participated in a lot of talent shows and sang a lot of Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and old school material. But honestly, for most of my life San Antonio has not had a major music scene. It’s one of those places where dreams of being a performer are put aside for family and more traditional career pursuits.”
After an especially energizing New Year’s Eve show with the group she had been working with, Melina began 2012 by just going for it, forming her own band and building an impressive resume of gigs throughout San Antonio—most prominently, a residency at Nueve, a club owned by Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. The singer began performing occasionally on the patio there before moving inside for a weekly gig until the venue closed. Parker also hired her to perform at his birthday party with superstar artists like T-Pain.
While continuing to gig in and around the city, Melina has also performed at the Divas of Jazz Concert for two consecutive years; been a featured artist for three consecutive years at the Texas Jazz Society Festival; and has performed in California at the renowned jazz hotspot Spaghettini and Jazz in the Creek in San Diego. She has also sung the National Anthem at several Spurs games and for local professional baseball and hockey teams. Recently, she was the headline performer for over 2,500 people at a large union convention at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
"I loved the experience of working with Paul and all these great musicians in making Wishing on Love, but for me nothing tops the excitement and energy of doing live performances,” says Melina. “I love connecting with people that way, and it’s especially wonderful when people come out that are familiar with my original music. I think both live and on the album, I am sharing my heart and the very positive outlook I have always had in my life, even long before these kinds of opportunities came my way. Most of these songs – and in particular ‘Maybe Not Today’ and the title track - have an uplifting feel to them, a sense of hope that no matter how things are right now, everything will work out for the best. It’s my privilege now to share these wonderful things with the world.”
Sources: Wikipedia, Top40-Charts.com Editorial team
Melina in the news
