Worrisome Heart

Melody Gardot | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 26, 2008)
• Original Release Date: February 26, 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Verve
• ASIN: B000WTNCYA
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,606 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #21 in Music > Pop > Vocal Pop > Classic
  • #26 in Music > Jazz > Vocal Jazz > General AAS

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

The finest musicians don't always make the most noise. At 22, singer-songwriter Melody Gardot understands the value of subtlety and understatement. It's what helps to make her debut album, `Worrisome Heart', sound simultaneously familiar, yet utterly surprising. For Melody, music is something that helps her relax, meditate, and look inwards. "I gravitate towards soothing music, often genres that are soft and somewhat unassuming. Music can do wonders for your spirit especially when it's the kind that calms you."

Gardot's presence both lyrically and musically lend themselves to someone far beyond her years, yet she had her first introduction to the world of music only a short while ago when she earned some spare cash by playing in piano bars. She was just 16.

"Music wasn't something I thought I'd wind up doing," she admits. "I played on Fridays and Saturdays, for four hours a night. I wasn't your typical player though because I only played music that I liked. A mix of things old and new, I played everything from the Mamas & The Papas to Duke Ellington to Radiohead."

It was only after an automobile accident while riding her bicycle home that the path Gardot has set out on began to change. Struck suddenly by a vehicle, she suffered multiple pelvic fractures, spinal, nerve and head injuries. Several of the effects have left their marks in various ways such as requiring Gardot to carry a cane and sport shaded glasses to combat residual photosensitivity.

Since Gardot had dabbled in music the past, during a follow up visit one day, her doctor suggested she try music therapy as a means for recovery. Specifically, he believed it would help her with her cognitive problems as music has been known to help repair neuropathways in the brain after severe trauma. However, her doctor can't have imagined the far-reaching consequences. While still unable to walk, Melody began writing and recording songs on a portable multitrack recorder at her bedside.

"I started recording the songs as a way to remember what I'd done; I had really bad short-term memory problems," she explains. "At the end of the day I couldn't remember the beginning".

These songs she wrote during her recuperation were released as a six-song EP called Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions. After hearing it, one critic commented that it was "a trick of alchemy that awful pain and uncertainty can give rise to such bold and striking music."

Although Melody claims she was never a fanatical music buff with a vast and esoteric record collection, she knows how to get the results she wants with her own songs.

"I had ideas about how I wanted things to go. In the studio cutting `Worrisome Heart', I remember standing in the recording booth and saying to the horn guys `can you make it sleazier?' They said `yeah! Sleazy man, that's cool!' It may not have been the most musical way to put it but they knew exactly what I meant!" she laughs.

Product Description

Gardot's engaging songs and sultry controlled vocals are provocative and familiar. Melody is cool, sophisticated, inspirational, stylish, articulate and sexy. An impressive introduction to this stunning talent, Worrisome Heart was produced by Gardot with Glenn Barratt and originally released independently in 2006. 10 tracks. Verve Records.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 94 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Shivery intimacy: she evokes nights in dark, smoky clubs. March 9, 2008

By luc_doc7

Format:Audio CD

The 23 year old Philadelphian turned to music while recovering from a horrific accident and her recovery process led to a new career.
Before the accident she'd already been working part-time as a lounge pianist to help fund her studies, playing tunes by Duke Ellington or Billy Joel against a hubbub of hecklers and clinking glasses, and one of her doctors said she should try music-making as part of her recovery process.
The recordings she made in a wheelchair at her hospital bedside were eventually released in 2005 as "Some Lessons - The Bedroom Sessions".
Picked up by the same DJ who discovered Norah Jones, Melody started gaining acclaim and signed to Universal/Verve.
Well, if you liked Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux's beguiling mix of jazz, blues, country and folk, then check out this young singer-songwriter-guitarist, whose voice is purer than Peyroux's but just as characterful and charming.
"Worrisome Heart" will appeal to anybody fond of Norah Jones or Madeleine Peyroux, though its understated bluesiness also seems to reach further back to the heyday of vintage American songwriting.
She displays a rare knack for imbuing music that can sound false or clichéd in lesser hands with a shivery sense of intimacy, as though she sneaked up behind you to blow in your ear. She looks the part, too, smiling quizzically from behind a Veronica Lake peek-a-boo hairstyle. Add a penchant for crimson shoes and lipstick and fishnet tights, and you have the kind of dame who'd know how to keep Humphrey Bogart in his place.
It is extremely sexy and intimate - listen no further than the title track or the groovy "Goodnite'" - and on swinging numbers, such as "All I Need Is Love", it has the bounce and ebullience of a young Billie Holiday....
It's also true that tracks like "Sweet Memory" and "Goodnite" have similarities to Norah Jones' standards but unsurprisingly this survivor also has an edge.
A rising star of the modern jazz scene, this album has 10 songs which evoke nights in dark, intimate clubs before smoking was banned.
This album deserves to have the same cultish success as Peyroux's Careless Love and Jones' "Come Away With me".
It's quality stuff and ideal for turning the lights down low to and allowing you to sink into the mellow, seductive sounds of Melody.

Some Lessons -The Bedroom Sessions
Careless Love
Come Away with Me
The Reminder Read more ›

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Goosebumps! November 26, 2008

By J. L. Bertram

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

All I need say about this album is, if you love a soothing, sultry voice and are looking for something a little bit different and unpredictable, this is the album for you. My two top tracks are the title track and 'Love me like a river does', which never fails to get those goosebumps going.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I cannot believe how good this CD is. June 29, 2009

By Argus Hamilton

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

First of all, what an interesting story - a girl gets hit by a car, develops a sensitivity to light and sound, and finds music therapy as a way to deal with her injuries. What she finds is a voice that sounds like she is literally singing 6" from your ear and singing directly to you. Her voice is very fresh and different from what you hear on radio. It's smoky, delicate, pitch perfect, wobbly and beautiful.

There are 5 songs on this CD that stand up to anything I've ever ever heard. They are "Gone", "Sweet Memory", "Some Lessons", "One Day" and the oh-my-gosh I can't believe how incredible this song is "Love Me Like A River Does". That song will knock you out. Period. As one reviewer put it "It's the sexy song I've ever heard" - ditto.

Buy this CD. Do not download it. You might end up tucking it under your pillow at night or spooning it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars wow June 28, 2008

By Kitchen Monkey Boy

Format:Audio CD

This might be one the best set of tracks I've listened to this year. The performance and production are as polished and clean as you could hope for, and the delivery so genuine and soulful you can almost smell the smoke and martinis. This makes a great gift for anyone who appreciates jazz or blues.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Norah Jones meets Madeleine Peyroux meets Eva Cassidy November 7, 2008

By J. Nordstrom

Format:Audio CD

I am really enjoying this new album & artist. Very mellow and smoky like Norah Jones -- but I definitely get moments of Madeleine Peyroux and the occasional Eva Cassidy, as well. (All top-notch singers in my book!) I look forward to seeing more from this artist in the future!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting October 2, 2011

By Gary Gagne

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

At first, I thought "Who is this woman?". I had to own her album! I bought it and then I thought her style was way too much like Peggy Lee for my liking. The longer I listened, the more relaxed and soothed I felt. Now her music just haunts me. The sensation is as unique as is her music. She is what legends are made of.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Jazzy Folk As Balm For Your Troubles November 21, 2008

By Philip R. Heath TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Worrisome Heart is the first full length studio CD from Melody Gardot. It is a smoky and mellow mix of jazz and folk that one should enjoy slowly as repetition leads to depth of appreciation and understanding. Melancholy runs deeply through this short collection of songs. While one might expect this from a young artist who survived being hit by a car while riding her bicycle, her torment on Worrisome Heart comes from another, but common, source. Even the song titles themselves suggest that the primary source of her pain is from love gone wrong in one way or another. Whether she pines for someone to take things slowly as in "Love Me Like A River Does" ("Baby don't rush/You're no waterfall") or the love from which she is separated on "Sweet Memories" ("Pretty soon I'll want the real thing instead/But for now I've got this sweet memory"). Gardot lyrically wears her heart(aches) on her sleeve.

Yet these don't come of as a simple collection of poor me drivel. Gardot has a vocal delivery somewhere between Diana Krall and Norah Jones, and she even mixes in scat singing on a few tracks. Her producer, Glenn Barratt, did a wonderful job of setting Worrisome Heart against a rich and varied instrumental backdrop. "Worrisome Heart" and "Love Me Like A River Does" both feature muted trumpet while the slightly upbeat "All That I Need Is Love" is set against a flowing clarinet line. Other songs such as "Gone" and " Sweet Memory" feature strings and/or guitar.

When you add it all up, you have a very musically mature sounding CD from a new artist. While you won't likely find yourself dancing to or uplifted by Worrisome Heart, it is still a very fulfilling musical experience. It is perfect for unwinding and relaxing after a stressful day.... As you see the beauty that Gardot makes of her own troubles, you will find your own to be somewhat lighter as well. Read more ›