Music: Melody Gardot

Along with actress Carey Mulligan, I fell in love with the musician Melody Gardot while watching the film An Education. She has a hauntingly beautiful, silky voice. Genre: jazzy, mellow blues similar to the 50's with a modern touch. (I don't normally like scatting - I love hers).

Her story is really interesting. She never planned on becoming a musician. Taken from Amazon, here is the story of how she got into singing professionally

It was only after an automobile accident while riding her bicycle home that the path Gardot has set out on began to change. Struck suddenly by a vehicle, she suffered multiple pelvic fractures, spinal, nerve and head injuries. Several of the effects have left their marks in various ways such as requiring Gardot to carry a cane and sport shaded glasses to combat residual photosensitivity.

Since Gardot had dabbled in music the past, during a follow up visit one day, her doctor suggested she try music therapy as a means for recovery. Specifically, he believed it would help her with her cognitive problems as music has been known to help repair neuropathways in the brain after severe trauma. However, her doctor can't have imagined the far-reaching consequences. While still unable to walk, Melody began writing and recording songs on a portable multitrack recorder at her bedside.
"I started recording the songs as a way to remember what I'd done; I had really bad short-term memory problems," she explains. "At the end of the day I couldn't remember the beginning".

I love My One and Only Thrill ("Your Heart is as Black as Night" is featured on An Education).