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At 47, rock icon Melissa Etheridge has finally found the higher power most of us can only dream of, and it is within.

Maybe it always was.

How else could a 20-something girl guitar player from Leavenworth, Kan., break every barrier in the often misogynistic rock music culture just by being herself, and score a Top 10 hit with “Bring Me Some Water”? Why else would she ignore advice and declare “Yes I Am” in 1993, forever putting to rest questions about her sexuality but risking stardom?

Who else could stare mortality in the face after being diagnosed with breast cancer and roar onto the Grammy stage a year later, bald from chemotherapy, smiling but defiant, bringing the house down with a rendition of Janis Joplin's “Piece of my Heart”?

The Oscar and two-time Grammy winner's current tour, landing at Viejas Casino in Alpine Saturday night, features her 2007 release “The Awakening.” For Etheridge, it reflects a new journey that began not with her cancer diagnosis in 2004, but just before.

Continue reading the Union-Tribune story here.

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