Melyssa Lee Rebuilt Three Acoustic Songs for Treasures with Producer Jon Martin
A Calgary Songwriter Turns Memoir Into Song, From Grief to Growing up with Immigrant Parents
Before synth and accordion arrived, three songs on Treasures were already out with almost nothing around them. In 2023, Melyssa Lee released them as acoustic versions, and a year later she rebuilt them for Treasures with producer Jon Martin. So the Calgary singer-songwriter’s first full album, out on 24 May 2024, starts from songs listeners could already hear in their barest form.
Melyssa Lee’s Treasures You Can Keep sits in the playlist below with our acoustic, soft and chamber folk picks. Every review of the album is linked from the Melyssa Lee profile. Treasures reached AcousticMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Give it a listen, then keep reading for where its acoustic songs went.
Melyssa Lee Rebuilt Sunflower, Last Words and Learning to Love for Treasures With Jon Martin
The acoustic versions came first, one at a time. Sunflower (Acoustic Version) arrived in January 2023 as Lee’s first single. Last Words followed in March and Learning to Love in May. All three then sat on the six-song simply acoustic compilation, still on Spotify. Those recordings capture the songs at their barest.
Treasures gives the same songs a full arrangement. Lee and Martin produced the album together. On Treasures You Can Keep, for example, Spotify credits Martin as arranger and producer. As a result, the palette now takes in rhythmic and arpeggiated instruments and gentle percussion. Small electronic touches, synth and accordion sit on top. The change is easy to measure on Sunflower. The acoustic take runs 4:17, while the album version runs 4:58.
Even so, the singing holds the two versions together. Lee’s voice moves from quiet, close verses to wide, open climaxes. For that range, the artist points to Sarah McLachlan, Dido and Dolores O’Riordan as models. On the album, the arrangement builds a frame around that voice without crowding it.
The Stories Behind Treasures, From a Friend’s Loss to Growing Up With Immigrant Parents
The songs are memoir. For instance, Sunflower is about the sudden death of a close friend’s young son. That single reached CBC Radio as a Local Spotlight feature, and community and college radio played it too. Around it, the album tells stories of birth, love, loss and death. It also tells of coming of age as the child of immigrant parents in Canada. The opener is called Raconteuse, the French word for a woman who tells stories. That is a fair description of the whole record.
AcousticMusic.News Curator Team: “We placed Treasures You Can Keep in our playlist because it shows what a careful arrangement can add. This songwriter first released these songs with almost nothing around them. The extra instruments widen the room without taking the story away from the songwriter.”
Seven Songs on Melyssa Lee’s Treasures, and Where the Acoustic Versions Went Next
Treasures runs to seven songs. Raconteuse opens it, followed by Nobody’s Home and Not Mine. Nobody’s Home came out as a single in February 2024, with a music video on Apple Music. Track four is the third of the acoustic songs, and the title idea arrives fifth, with Treasures You Can Keep. Finally, Last Words and Sunflower close the album, so two of the three acoustic survivors end the record.
From Sarah McLachlan’s Lilith Fair to a Trio Night at the Ship and Anchor
The Lilith Fair era behind the album was built around Sarah McLachlan, the Canadian songwriter who co-founded the touring festival in 1997. It ran every summer to 1999 with a bill made up entirely of women and female-led bands. That history matters to Melyssa Lee’s Treasures, a Canadian record made in the same spirit of a songwriter putting personal stories first. Dolores O’Riordan, the lead vocalist of The Cranberries, is the other touchstone. Her trademarks were a yodel and keening, the old Irish way of crying out a lament.
Meanwhile, the songs kept moving after the album. In April 2024, Lee played Nobody’s Home with a trio at the Ship and Anchor in Calgary. Then, in June 2026, a duo performance of an album song at the King Eddy went up on Lee’s YouTube channel. The album itself came out on Mel’s Musical Journey Records. Lee has since formed a band, Education Party, whose arrangements add violin, mandolin, keys and percussion.
If you grew up on the Lilith Fair records, start with Sunflower in both versions. Then play Treasures from the beginning.
Hear Treasures on Apple Music or buy it on Bandcamp. Follow Melyssa Lee across platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and the official site.
About The Author
