Melody Gardot

No more, my Lord,

No more, my Lord,

Lord, I'll never turn back no more.

She opened the concert with a capella "No More, my Lord" an old prison, spiritual song, Melody Gardot invited the audiences to her world of music, her joy, her love and her pain. Her velvet voice is unique and powerful with the touch of Nina, Ella and even Billie and her improvisational artistry were incredibly impressive, she made Palau de la Música belong to her and it made me love Barcelona even more that night.

Some people are born to be a star and for sure she is one of them, especially when you know about the car accident and her fight for recovery. As she said "lt was like climbing the Mt. Everest everyday" you might start to think, maybe everything happened for a reason … what if she is tone deaf? And what if she has a terrible singing voice and have no talent for music at all? God will not give you more than you can handle. And everything that happened in our life is something to train us to be a better person, something beyond what we know about ourselves. Life is a lesson so to speak. We learn and we make it better.

If you read about her you will see, beside her singing, she also focus on helping universities to developing music therapy, a therapy which a trained music therapist uses music to help clients to improve or maintain their health, music experiences such as  improvisation, singing, songwriting, listening to and discussing music,  the very same thing that helped her to recovere. Just to imagine after a serious accident you can't walk and have problem with your memory and have to start to learn everything all over again, such as brushing your teeth and a few years later you are touring the world performing. That actually remind me of “the Bride” in Kill Bill, only Gardot didn’t hold grudges towards life, instead she is enjoying what she receives and give back and to be a good-doer, in one of her song she wrote: 

If the stars were mine
I'd tell you what I'd do
I'd put the stars right in a jar
And give 'em all to you

If the birds were mine
I'd tell them when to sing
I'd make them sing a sonnet
When your telephone would ring

I would put them there inside the square
Whenever you went out
So there'd always be sweet music
Whenever you walk about

The old saying, “Give and you get more”, maybe the music is just part of it, what keeping her going is her kind heart knowing that she is just part of this world and knowing she is blessed. She was giving a second chance  no matter this chance is a gift from above or something she is fighting for. You can be sure that she didn’t waste any of it, she even became a macrobiotic cook just to keep herself healthy, to me her success is not about her singing career but she is a great learner with a good spirit, it made the passed away of many talented people like Amy Whitehouse, Heath Ledger even more tragic and sadder, maybe “music therapy” is also something they needed. I hope there are more human being out there like Melody Gardot. Who is positive and doing her best to live and celebrating life with music and love, I consider she is one of the best singer who have her heart and feeling, reaching out to people, her voice and music has became part of the therapy to others and you might think more people out there will appreciated her music but too bad when you look around you see more people doing Gangnam style and jumping like horses. “No more, my Lord” I sing.

Macrobiotic Japanese Daikon radish dressing – serve with tofu, salad, meat or seafood.

4 tps of grated white radish

3 tps of light soy sauce

3 tps of rice vinegar or white vinegar

2 tps of freshly lemon juice

5 tps of vegetable oil 

1 tps of Mirin 

1/2 of Dashi powder