The music and story of Melody Gardot brings our program to a close today.

Gardot: “I was introduced to music in a sort of unusual way. I was introduced through music therapy as a patient who had suffered a head injury.”

A head injury that resulted from a collision between her bike and a jeep. Doctors treated the injury with, among other things, music therapy.

Gardot: “I’ve argued that my life happens in a series of accidents because the first song I wrote was an accident. I didn’t intend to write. I just sat down and then popped out a song and I was swift to catch it. Music arrives. It’s not something you seek, it arrives like an unexpected package and either you pick it up or it disappears. It’s like a dream. You have to acknowledge it’s there and give it an opportunity to be embraced or else it runs away from you.”

Melody Gardot’s first brush with fame came locally — in her home town of Philadelphia. A giant leap occurred when a record label in Britain distributed her music to a European audience. Gardot says Europeans go for her style.

Gardot: “I think the standard of aestheticism over in Europe is different than that of the United States. Everything from the attire to the cuisine and so goes to the music and to the arts.”

France was the first country to embrace her.

Gardot: “So that was very, very refreshing but the surprises started to happen as we travelled further around Europe and just as wonderful a response. A lot of what we do comes down to the live performance because anyone can make a record and stay home, but the real inter action you have as a performer is on the stage, where you’re giving something for a song and then there’s applause. And as we’ve had that throughout Europe and Japan and Australia performances have been very, very key for us.”

Melody Gardot’s album “My One and Only Thrill” has hit the Top 10 in France and Japan. In fact record sales are ten times greater overseas than they are here in the US. Gardot has certainly found her comfort zone outside the states. Perhaps 2010 will bring her back home.