Exploring the importance of music during a pandemic and its connection to brain functioning

For this show I have another amazing story. This is about a jazz singer from New Jersey, Melody Gardot. When she was 19 she was struck by a SUV while riding a bicycle. She sustained head, spinal, and pelvic injuries. She was confined to a hospital bed for a year. Gardot needed to relearn simple tasks and was left over sensitive to light and sound. She suffered from memory loss. The accident damaged the neural pathways between the brain's two cortices that control perception and higher mental function. Gardot’s physician tried using music to help heal her brain. She learned to hum, then sing into a tape recorder and eventually to write songs. Her sensitivity to sound brought her to choose quieter music, closer to our format. Music played a critical role in her recovery. Since that time she has become a Grammy Award nominee and recognized world wide for her incredible talent. Gardot has become an advocate of music therapy and she now visits hospitals and universities to discuss its benefits. The healing effects of music are undeniable. It has been demonstrated that music is one thing Alzheimer’s patients are able to relate to from their past lives. During this pandemic I try to remember that when the world seems to be falling apart that music is capable of bringing the world back together again.  Melody Gardot will release a new album Sunset In The Blue on October 23rd. I am playing an early release from that album titled From Paris With Love.

During the first segment you will also hear Paul Brown, Johnny Britt, and Phillip Doc Martin.