Melody Gardot - Interview Mag

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"To reveal that an artist has overcome adversity in order to achieve success in the music industry is, generally speaking, about as much of a revelation as the discovery of cuteness in babies or kittens. See Behind the Music, any episode, or an open mic-night in the West Village. But Melody Gardot's story takes the singer-songwriter's woeful narrative arc and turns it on its head. She barely studied music growing up—a few years of piano here and there, a side job playing in jazz bars for cash - and planned to pursue painting, not music, as a career. But when Gardot was hit by a jeep while riding her bike through the streets of Philadelphia, the then-19-year-old art student was advised to take up an instrument as a form of music therapy. She taught herself guitar while bedridden (it was too painful to sit at a piano), and shortly thereafter was not only walking (in heels, no less), but writing songs and recording entire albums...."
-- History of Melody Gardot - Music - Interview Magazine