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 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,667 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #41 in Music > Pop > Vocal Pop > Classic
  • #68 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

". . . in a place where Billie Holiday meets Tom Waits . . . has moments that recall pieces of Nina Simone, early Rickie Lee Jones, and even the sophistication of Cole Porter. " - Business Week

Although there are elements of jazz, blues and folk in her music, it is simultaneously all of those things and none of them. Her engaging songs and sultry controlled vocals possess a timeless quality that places them in the tradition of the great female vocalists on Verve, whose work have also not been confined to any one genre or style

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 83 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 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worrisome Heart (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

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Goosebumps!, November 26, 2008

By 

J. L. Bertram (South Africa) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Worrisome Heart (Audio CD)

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.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enticing, intoxicating mix of blues, jazz and the occasional eruption of steamy, erotic longing., June 8, 2008

By 

South End - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worrisome Heart (Audio CD)

At twenty-three, singer-songwriter Melody Gardot has a hauntingly beautiful, silky voice that can melt event the hardest of hearts.
Drenched in a sublime vapour of mellow blues, eclectic folk and above all jazz, 'Worrisome Heart' is a ten-track collection of original songs co-produced by Melody Gardot and Grammy Award winning producer Glenn Barratt.
With a superb narrative, nuanced phrasing and skillfully constructed arrangements, this is a rare and unique album.
Echoes of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald belie her jazz heritage, whilst the lyrics communicate a wise, determined and occasionally lighthearted take on life.
What's more, these fragile tales of love are all self-penned.
Backed by the some of the finest musicians on the American jazz scene, she has already drawn rave reviews everywhere.
Melody, who is just 23, manages to sound wise beyond her years without sounding foolish.
She combines old school jazz with fresh and original self penned lyrics - no rehashing covers for this songbird.
The album opens smooth and mellow with the title track, "Worrisome Heart", where she asks for love, eccentricities and all. Moving into the lighter, upbeat "All That I Need Is Love", she reprimands the male species for being oblivious to a woman's finer needs.
Her songs flow in this manner through the rest of the album, with gems such as the Cole Porter-esque "Love Me Like A River", the seductive "Quiet Fire", and the sentimental, optimistic "One Day".
Her resulting inner steel cuts through best in top tracks "Worrisome Heart" and "Love Me Like A River Does", lifting them above standard dreamy jazz classics.
On the album's title track, she calls herself a "worrisome, troubling, baggage free, modern day dame, ain't nobody the same".
She's right there. Meanwhile "Love Me Like A River Does" stands out for its simple yet devastating lines such as: "Baby don't rush, you're no waterfall - love me that is all".
The tunes are understated and simple yet when paired with her strong, clear voice, the mix is intoxicating.
Her warm, broken phrasing and the band's close backing put one in mind of Ella Fitzgerald's work with Johnny Mercer.
This isn't an album that blows you away. It sneaks up on you.
Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux have some serious competition on their hands.