Remember the girl next door? You know the one, the bookworm who kept you on your toes with her quick wit and smart alecky sense of humor. Whatever happened to her, you might be asking yourself. I’ll tell you what happened: she grew up and traded in her teddy bears, roller skates and skinned knees for silk stockings, an evening gown and a microphone. Melissa Dinwiddie is still keeping you on your toes, but now it’s to a melody line.

You never knew the girl next door could sing like this, did you? But Melissa does more than just sing; she tells stories in song, bringing new shadings to classics by songwriters like Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim, as well as to contemporary and original material. She still loves to play, too. Rhythm, phrasing, melody and lyrics are her modern day sand bucket and shovel. And she can still dish it out to the neighborhood boys, tossing melodic ideas back and forth with her band, the way you used to play with water balloons on a hot summer day.

With a repertoire that runs the gamut of human emotion and experience, Melissa will tug at your heartstrings one moment and pull a laugh out of you the next, all to a toe-tapping swing beat. Unexpected versions of old chestnuts like “All Of Me” might even surprise you, because there’s nothing the girl next door loves more than a good surprise.

Melissa is an artist who understands that although the trappings have changed, the kid next door still lives on in each of us. The difference now is that we get to dress up for real, drive a stick shift, drink champagne, and all that other fun stuff that comes with growing up.

site design and all contents © Melissa Dinwiddie 2008
with wordsmithing assistance by Robin J. Schwartz