Melissa Ferrick is a Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University in the Music Department at the College of Arts Media and Design. Ferrick teaches courses on songwriting (focusing on lyric, melody, and intent), creative entrepreneurship, demo recording and production, live performance, the intersection of psychopathology and creativity, nonprofit arts management, and the music business. She's released seventeen albums over the last twenty-five years and has won numerous awards for songwriting, production, and performance. From 2013 – to 2019, Melissa was an Associate Professor of Songwriting at Berklee College of Music. She holds an Ed.M from Harvard University.
Melissa is the named plaintiff of the class action lawsuit Ferrick v. Spotify for willful copyright infringement. Their publishing catalog is administered worldwide by the Raleigh Music Group.
Signed to Atlantic Records in 1992 at the age of 21, Melissa released her debut and sophomore albums on Atlantic after opening for Morrissey in the U.S. and UK. Melissa released three albums on W.A.R. Records from 1996 to 1999 and two on MPress Records from 2011 to 2014. In 2000, Melissa launched the nationally distributed independent record label Right On Records. Ferrick is currently working with the venerable Kill Rock Stars Records. Most recently, Ferrick started Drive Music Agency (D.M.A.), which offers musicians personal management and consulting services. D.M.A. currently represents Brennan Wedl and Joh Chase.
Regarded in the industry and by their peers as one of the most prolific and hardworking artists in the business, Ferrick is an active songwriter and performs throughout North America. She has shared the stage with Morrissey, Joan Armatrading, Weezer, Tegan and Sara, Mark Cohen, Paul Westerberg, Bob Dylan, John Hiatt, Ani DiFranco, k.d. Lang, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and many others.
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Kristen Ford is a singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist influenced by greats such as Alanis
Morrisette, Radiohead and Ani Difranco. She navigates life as a biracial, queer girl and tours
globally in pursuit of the perfect show. Her live performance morphs from unplugged solo
acoustic to screaming, electric guitar soloing in front of a rock band to her dynamic one woman
band using loops, beatboxing and a healthy case of ADHD to her advantage.
Ford’s Righteous Babe Records debut was produced by Ani Difranco and mixed by John Driskill
Hopkins (Zac Brown Band) and is set to release late 2024.
