Melody Gardot’s amazing recovery
turns into music career
American jazz singer, writer and
musician, Melody Gardot is currently number one in France ahead
of Black Eyed Peas with her latest album My One and Only Thrill.
In a recent interview with CBS, the beautiful singer tells of how she
came to have her handicap.
Despite having suffered a fractured
pelvis and spinal damage, the star’s taste for glamour is most evident
in her wild shoes. Gardot says shoes are her collectors items, since
she can’t drive very well.
Six years ago, Gardot the college
student was riding her bike through an intersection when a jeep skipped
the light which caused not only the fractured pelvis and damaged spine,
but a brain injury that affected her memory, speech and left her hypersensitive
to light and sound. The accident inspired the lyrics “Well, I’m
buckled up inside, Miracle I’m alive”.
Dr Richard Jermyn at the University
of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was not hopeful that shoe would
recover her memory. As it’s a different part of the brain that perceives
music to retrieving memory, he encouraged her to continue playing piano.
Slowly the music therapy began rebuilding neural pathways.
Out of that accident, her music career
was born. Her songs and story quickly spread across MySpace after he
songs were posted there in 2006. Despite having to constantly wear glasses
for light sensitivity and walk with a cane to counteract onsets of vertigo,
she remains a top selling artist, with style to boot.
