Melissa rocks the R Family cruise

This summer Melissa Etheridge, Tammy Lynn Michaels, and their family celebrated her recovery from cancer by taking an extended RV vacation across the country. For Etheridge, it was a radical departure from her customary way to spend the summer: on the road with her band, making everybody else’s holiday more fun. “We drove from Los Angeles to New York and took Rosie’s R Family cruise,” Etheridge explained. “It was amazing.” Here’s her account of a magical time and what it sparked in her.

You weren’t booked to entertain on the R Family cruise, but you staged a surprise performance anyway. What was that like, to play for that crowd at that place at that time?
Like a huge celebration. The way we did it, everybody was so nice. [The stateroom setup] enabled me to be private a lot so we didn’t have to see many people, and we could go watch the shows in a place that I felt safe—it was cool. Not that anyone’s gonna hurt me…

But still, it must be nutty to have to be you.
Yeah. [Laughs]

Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Especially in a gay place.

I imagine it’s sort of hard to be nice to gay people who want your autograph.
There you go, yeah. That is hard, especially when I have my kids—I don’t want it when I have my kids. My kids don’t like it; it’s a weird energy; it’s weird to see people going weird about your mom. It’s uncomfortable. So if I have my kids [with me], I’m not gonna sign an autograph for you—it’s just not gonna happen. But it was really, really safe with Rosie, and as the week went on, I said [whispering], “Just let me do a couple songs.” She was like, “OK—we’ve got a little Broadway night the last night.” Rosie takes pictures of all the people—she loves to go around and take pictures of everyone in iPhoto and make a little slide show [which she shows to passengers on the final night of the cruise].

So I said, “Why don’t I—when you slip through your slide show—I’ll just be playing guitar, and they’ll think it’s just some nice guitar music you’ve got going for your slide show.” So I was behind the screen playing guitar, and then this slide show was about 10 minutes long. So I played and [humming in her distinctive voice] hummed a couple notes, and I heard this [murmur] from the audience. [Anne laughs] I sang, “Oh, yea-a-ah,” and I heard [this louder murmur]. Then they go back to watching, looking for a face, and it’s really sweet—all the pictures. Finally, toward the end, as it went down to a “We love you” and “Thank you for the cruise,” I started singing. And the screen went up, and they went, “Ye-e-eah!” But I could’ve just bowed and walked off, and it would’ve been fine. But when I perform for the community, especially now, there’s just this big, warm, yummy hug. It’s just this amazing thing. I could do anything, and what a great feeling—any song I want to do, anything.

So what did you say?
Since there were two shows, I said, “I’ll do ’em both. I’ll do both things.” So we did it twice. The first show had kids there because it was earlier, so I think I did—I don’t remember what I did. I remember the second one was a little more bawdy, and I did an acoustic version of “Piece of My Heart,” because that’s Tammy’s favorite from a long time ago—she had a bootleg of it. That was her favorite thing, and she’d never heard me sing it live until the Grammys. So I did it on the cruise.