Melissa Etheridge has done some pretty gutsy things in her stellar career. She’s shown no fear in forthrightly standing up for her truths, both in her songs and her life.

But as an artist she’s never quite laid it on the line like she does on MEmphis Rock and Soul, released in October 2016 via Stax Records, a division of Concord Music Group. Sure, she’s sung songs by some of her biggest heroes before. But Otis Redding? Mavis Staples? Sam and Dave? Rufus Thomas? These are some of the names, some of the voices of music at the pinnacle of an era in American music, the people indelibly identified with the songs on this album. Captured at the historic landmark Royal Studios with a band of some of the preeminent figures in the Memphis scene, the album includes veterans of some of the city’s most cherished recordings. The songs themselves are all core to the famed Stax Records label, and the album is Etheridge’s loving tribute to the role the music of Stax played in her life, and in modern American life.

Deschutes County Fair ~ August 3, 7pm, free with concert pass and gate