Bio

What's the story...

Melisa Devost writes introspective and observant songs about life patterns and choices, love or lack of, and the refinements of what it means to be human on this planet. Her music varies from blues-tinged heaviness to heartfelt non-denominational gospel to quirky folk-pop.

Combining fingerstyle guitar with a voice that has been described as "powerful, beautiful and dynamic," Melisa weaves her tales of woe and whoa! into a show that is engaging and emotionally stirring.


Melisa tours with her band The Responders (bassist Ken Clark, drummer/percussionist Dave Pady, guitarist Tony Wilson) while carving out her own niche as a strong solo performer.


Background

Melisa Devost grew up in the small rural community of Hornby Island. She composed her first song around the age of seven while meandering on the dirt and gravel roads to and from school. Although she continued to compose tunes and stories throughout her childhood, the first song she played for anyone she wrote for her heartbroken friend and lugged her guitar through the woods to play it for her, and they both cried.

It was shortly afterwards that Melisa left Hornby Island for the bigger world. She spent the subsequent years traveling, living in Ireland where she frequented the local trad music sessions and wailed songs accapella, falling in and out of love, moving around a lot, living in decrepit shacks in the woods and throwing herself into all that good life stuff songwriters tend to write about. It was after a particularly rough go that she started writing blues and gospel songs; when asked one day, "how do you write a blues song?" She replied, " I think you really have to have the blues."

Her first recording "Click" which was recorded in the Green cabin and mixed in the Brown cabin on Hornby Island, was released in 2002. The first gospel song Melisa wrote caught the attention of folk music veteran Ken Whiteley at the Hornby Island Blues Workshop. They played together and he invited her to go on tour with him, which she did. Ken has since twice invited Melisa to Toronto to perform in his ongoing gospel series, which shaped the CD, "Gospel Music Makes Me Feel Alright." Ken also produced Melisa's sophomore album "Capacity," released in April 2005.