In the mystical, starry cover art of Melina’s breakthrough full length recording Wishing On Love, we see a silhouette of someone sitting on the hood of a sedan, gazing into the night sky with anticipation, perhaps in search of fresh and transformational magic.
From the sensual and soulful first lyrics of “Maybe Not Today,” the album’s opening track and debut single, the San Antonio, Texas based singer – who emerges on the national stage after several years of headlining festivals and clubs in her hometown – delivers promisingly on that hope. Launching an intimate yet powerful relationship with the listener, she brings her multiple shades of amazing (with touches of pop, jazz, R&B, rock and gospel) to a colorful mix of seven originals and beautiful new arrangements of the pop classics “Superstar,” “At Last” and “Landslide.”
Helping guide her lifelong dreams and evolving musical vision is producer guitarist Paul Brown, a two time Grammy winner with over 60 #1 smooth jazz radio hits who has brought his Midas touch in the studio over the years to R&B and jazz vocal greats like Luther Vandross, Al Jarreau, George Benson and Jonathan Butler.
As she was building momentum with a series of performances in San Antonio last year, Melina opened for popular saxophonist Jessy J at the annual Divas of Jazz Festival. Melina had started making demos of original material and was seeking a top-flight producer to help develop her sound. When she learned that Jessy’s three hit albums and numerous #1 singles were produced by Brown, she emailed the producer some of her songs. Brown was struck immediately by both the emotional subtlety and power of her voice, and invited her to come to Los Angeles to work with him.
“It’s always a thrill to discover new talent,” he says. “When it comes to vocalists, it’s rare to find someone like Melina who is at that stage where she’s just starting her career; she’s not jaded and hasn’t gone through ten previous producers and managers. She sent me some of her early demos and we talked back and forth. I heard a little Linda Ronstadt and some Adele in a voice that’s seriously as big as Texas. I thought it would be cool to try some different things. Given the right songs I knew something big could come out of these sessions. I invited her to come to L.A. to work with me, called some of the guys I write with regularly, and we had a lot of fun making it happen. For me, working with an artist like Melina was personally liberating because it’s like the pop and soul music I grew up with, presented through her beautiful voice in an inspiring new way.”
Everything Melina and Brown worked on was purely on spec at first, but as their professional relationship grew and the tracks took shape, it was clear that Melina brought a refreshing authenticity to the table as an emerging, multi-faceted R&B/jazz vocalist and songwriter. Brown called in some of his big guns, starting with lyricist Dax Reynosa, who co-wrote “Maybe Not Today” with Lew Laing; “Stay With Me Tonight,” “I Will Be Loving You” and “Halfway Gone” with multi-instrumentalist Marco Basci, Brown and Melina; and “If I Never Told You” and the title track “Wishing On Love” with Brown. Other top L.A. studio stalwarts on Wishing On Love include bassist Sekou Bunch, keyboardist Phillipe Saisse and longtime Brown collaborator Jeff Carruthers, who plays keys, bass and drums and creates a seductive, organic soul arrangement of “At Last,” shifting its tempo from a 6/8 blues into 4/4 time. Brown’s wife Jacqui, an author and songwriter, contributes the heartfelt inspirational mother to daughter tune “Walk With You.”