NASHVILLE |FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/MARCEE RONDAN/LATHUM NELSON
MELISSA MANCHESTER
TO LAUNCH NATIONAL TOUR MARCH 19 IN SUPPORT
OF NEW ALBUM ‘WHEN I LOOK DOWN THAT ROAD’
AND SINGLE ‘AFTER ALL THIS TIME’;
SET TO PERFORM MARCH 27 ON CBS ‘SATURDAY EARLY SHOW’
“I recently had the opportunity to see my friend Melissa Manchester performing in New York City, and was reminded of all the great songs she’s written over the years. Now Melissa is back with a brand new album When I Look Down That Road, that’s full of new songs for all of us to appreciate.”
–Carole King
“Great voice. Great writer. Great artist.”
–Keb’ Mo’
Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter-musician MELISSA MANCHESTER will hit the road March 19 in support of her March 9 release WHEN I LOOK DOWN THAT ROAD (Koch Records) and the single “After All This Time,” graced by Keb’ Mo’ on slide guitar.
MELISSA’s set list will include songs from her first new album of all-new studio material in nearly a decade on the cross-country trek, the first leg of which will last through most of April. In the midst of the dates, MELISSA will perform March 27 on CBS’ “Saturday Early Show.”
Co-produced by Kevin DeRemer and Stephan Oberhoff, WHEN I LOOK DOWN THAT ROAD reinforces MELISSA’s commitment to a new creative method of stripping aside the extraneous elements in order to get to what really matters: the heart of the song. MELISSA wrote or co-wrote every song on the stripped-down album that forgoes heavy production to reveal the warm, intimate side of her voice that highlighted early hits like “Midnight Blue” and “Come In From The Rain.”
On “After All This Time,” the elements come together: a melody that nestles into a comfortable groove, Keb’ Mo’s sensually empathetic slide guitar rising like smoke through the air of Melissa’s piano. “Me and that silv’ry moon watched silently as you breathed,” sings MELISSA. “I wouldn’t break the spell, even to steal a kiss…After all this time, baby, we got this right.”
MELISSA describes the tune: “Blue Miller wrote this melody and I took it home with me to Los Angeles. Sometimes, when I need to shake some words out of my brain, I’ll read through books by the great lyricists. In this case it was Johnny Mercer: I kept reading his lyrics and thinking, ‘What would he do with this kind of a song?’ He had such a magnificent way of writing sentimentally. So I sat next to my bed, at my desk, looking through his lyrics, playing the tape of ‘After All This Time’–and the words just rose up from the dust and came to me.”
Meanwhile, U.K. music critic Charles Donovan has praised WHEN I LOOK DOWN THAT ROAD, stating: “Melissa Manchester has made the album of her life…Every song is rewarding, and demands repeat listens…When I Look Down That Road is the most conclusive, triumphant, victorious riposte imaginable. It’s an album created by someone who’s traversed both the inner and outer landscapes, and finally come home to tell us about the journey.”
Catch up with MELISSA at: <http://www.melissa-manchester.com/>
The initial tour dates are as follows:
Date City Venue
3/19 Kalamazoo, MI Miller Auditorium
3/20 Sandusky, OH Sandusky State Theatre
3/21 Mount Clemens, MI Macomb Center
3/24 East Lansing, MI Wharton Center
3/25 Westbury, NY Westbury Music Fair
3/26 Purchase, NY Purchase College
3/27 New Brunswick, NJ State Theatre
3/28 Schenectady, NY Proctor’s Theatre
3/30 Bradford, PA Bradford Area HS Aud.
4/1 Wilmington, DE Grand Opera House
4/2 Storrs, CT Jorgensen Auditorium
4/3 Storrs, CT Jorgensen Auditorium
4/4 Glenside, PA Keswick Theatre
4/6 Mableton, GA Mablehouse Amp.
4/7 Sarasota, FL TBA
4/8 Melbourne, FL King Center
4/9 Daytona Beach, FL Peabody Auditorium
4/10 Lakeland, FL Youkey Theatre
4/12 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Broward Center
4/13 Naples, FL Philharmonic Center
4/15-18 Pittsburgh, PA Heinz Hall w/
Pittsburgh Symphony
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