Melissa Etheridge returns to Tucson after 21-year absence

Talk about your long-awaited encores — it has taken Melissa Etheridge 21 years to return to a Tucson stage.

Her last Tucson concert was in 1992, three years after she had initially introduced herself with her rough-hewn, chicks-with-guitars-style driving rock.

She was supposed to return in 2004, but her tour that year was canceled when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

On Saturday, she returns to open UApresents’ 2013-14 season.

“It’s way too long,” Etheridge said during a recent phone interview from her home in California, promising that her show Saturday will be worth the long wait. “If you’re ready, I’m ready. We can do it.” Etheridge comes to Tucson with a renewed sense of herself. She said she is “better, happier and healthier than I’ve ever been.”

“I’m loving when I play. I’m loving touring. I’m just having a great time,” she nearly gushed.

For the first time in years, she is happy in her personal life, she allowed. She and her girlfriend of more than three years are engaged and she’s knee-deep in the final phase of a career retrospective box set, due out next year.

We caught up with Etheridge to talk about the box set, her 25-plus-year career and what the recent Supreme Court ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act means to her. Here are excerpts of that interview; for the full interview, see azstarnet.com/calientetunedin

How are you going to winnow your 25 years into a box set?

“I keep telling people I feel like I’m trying to land a dirigible (a blimp).It is just so massive. Finally, I am in the last phases. I’ve got to cut it down a little bit more, just got to make it a little more concise because there is so much material. So many demos, tracks that never got on (any of my) 12 albums. It’s quite a fun undertaking.”

This doesn’t sound like a greatest hits package. Sounds like you are curating your entire career.

“Oh yes, That’s exactly what’s going on. I have a greatest hits record, and anyone who would really want to buy this sort of deep thing, I want to give them things they have never, ever heard. ... Some of them I think are really good songs that I’m happy to finally be releasing.”

Are you including songs that you might not really like yourself but your fans might see a different side of you in them?

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“Oh yeah. A couple things where people will go, ‘Well I see why she didn’t put it on (another album), but that’s interesting.’”

Your music has always been very personal and reflecting where you are in your life. Where are you these days?

“That’s been the most surprising. So much of my career was the heartbreak, the pain and the ‘Oh, the struggle’. But after breast cancer, I said, ‘Wait a minute. I want to write about my heart, what I’m going through.’ The last three albums have been life journeys. Love, falling in love again. Passionate things. I have much passion in my life right now. Happiness, health, curiosity, dreams — those are the things I’m writing about.”

Your 2012 album, “4th Street Feeling, ” had so much optimism, which was something you didn’t really express early in your career.

“Well I have a nice, light, airy optimism about me now. I certainly hope you don’t hear the broken-hearted Melissa any more because I don’t want to be that any more.”

How has the Supreme Court ruling shooting down the Defense of Marriage Act impacted California?

“Oh my gosh, there are so many weddings everywhere. It’s beautiful. It so turned us upside down. In California, we like to think of ourselves as so progressive, so out there in front of everybody. But to sort of have a national disgrace. Iowa, for heaven’s sake, passed gay marriage. So when that happened there was a shadow over us. I think we finally felt like OK, we believed in this enough. We took it all the way to the Supreme Court and it’s gone.”

What kind of message does the Supreme Court action send to other states that don’t have same-sex marriage, like Arizona?

“I think the greatest message is we’re moving into our future of freedom, of diversity and how our diversity will make us strong. Not being afraid of those who we consider different. We’re going to totally judge every person on the content of their character and not anything else. That’s a beautiful country to be in. I want to be there.”

Your openness about your lesbian lifestyle doesn’t seem to have produced any professional backlash.

“I went from selling under a million records to over 6 million after I came out. No, it never hurt me. Back then it was very new. I am very happy to have been part of it.”

Since we haven’t seen you in Tucson in 21 years, what can we expect Saturday?

“I feel like I’ve just been working on the best set list for the last 25 years and that’s what I’ve been making my albums for. The show now consists of those solid hits that people love, that people know, that I love playing. And I’m always leaving some space open for those deep album tracks … And I’m playing a lot more guitar than I used to and I’m loving that.”