Melanie Thornton

Melanie Janene Thornton was born on May 13, 1967, in Charleston, South Carolina.

She began studying singing at the age of six and also learned piano and clarinet. Growing up, her mother listened to Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, and Melanie imitated the singers she saw on television or heard on the radio.
She later financed her university studies by taking part in talent contests and performing concerts with small groups.

While frequenting a club called The Peacock Lounge, she joined jam sessions when the live band invited people to sing. Dreaming of a music career, she moved to Germany in February 1992, where her sister lived with her U.S. Army husband, and she held dual German and American citizenship.
Encouraged by her uncle, singer and pianist Bob Chisolm, to try her luck in German nightclubs, she soon found work in studios recording demos.

Her recording of the song Sweet Dreams caught the attention of producer Frank Farian, the creator of the duo Milli Vanilli. Farian took her under his wing and paired her with rapper Lane McCray to form the duo La Bouche, for which she was the lead singer from 1994 to 1999.

She left La Bouche in February 2000, replaced by Natascha Wright, and signed a recording contract with Sony/Epic Records to begin a solo career.

Her first solo single, Love How You Love Me, a ballad with dance remixes, was released in November 2000. She performed it on November 29 at the RTL Spendenmarathon and on December 1 at the Dome in Berlin.
The next single was titled Heartbeat. Her first solo album, Ready To Fly, was released on May 7, 2001, on the X-Cell label.
She continued performing in clubs in the United States under the name “Melanie Thornton, formerly of La Bouche”.

On November 24, 2001, after a concert in Leipzig, she took Crossair Flight 3597 from Berlin to Zurich to promote her new single Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Coming) and her album.
The plane crashed near Bassersdorf, Switzerland. Melanie Thornton was among the victims.

The single Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Coming) was a Christmas ballad recorded for a German Coca-Cola television commercial. Despite her death, the campaign was kept and used in several European countries.
A year after her death, in 2002, Kayo Shekoni replaced Natascha Wright alongside Lane McCray to release the track In Your Life, featuring Melanie Thornton’s vocals as a tribute.