Melody Gardot (born February 2, 1985 in New Jersey) is an American jazz singer, writer and musician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gardot graduated from Lenape High School of Medford, New Jersey in 2003. Her interest of music had grown with the help of her former music teacher at Lenape, Mr. Thomas Traub.After high school, she attended college in Philidelphia, PA where she had originally majored in fashion and designing. She has been influenced by such blues and jazz artists as Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin as well as Latin music artists such as Stan Getz and Caetano Veloso.
While cycling in Philadelphia in November 2003 she was hit by a Jeep Cherokee whose driver had ignored a red traffic light.
In the accident she suffered serious head and spinal injuries and her pelvis was shattered in two places. Because of these severe injuries she was confined to her hospital bed for a year and had to remain lying on her back. As a further consequence of her injuries she had to re-learn simple tasks such as brushing her teeth and walking. The most noticeable effect of the neural injuries she suffered is that she was left hyper-sensitive to both light and sound, therefore requiring her to wear dark sunglasses at nearly all times to shield her eyes. The accident also resulted in both long and short term memory problems and difficulty with her sense of time. Gardot has described coping with this as like "climbing Mount Everest every day" as she often wakes with no memory of what she has to do that day.
(Source: www.wikipedia.org)
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