Melody was born on February 2, 1985 in New Jersey. The talented singer suffered an accident in 2003. While cycling in Philadelphia in November, she was hit by a Jeep Cherokee whose driver had ignored a red traffic light. In the accident she suffered serious head and spinal injuries and her pelvis was shattered in two places. Because of these severe injuries she was confined to her hospital bed for a year and had to remain lying on her back. As a further consequence of her injuries she had to re-learn simple tasks such as brushing her teeth and walking. The most noticeable effect of the neural injuries she suffered is that she was left hyper-sensitive to both light and sound, therefore requiring her to wear dark sunglasses at nearly all times to shield her eyes. The accident also resulted in both long and short term memory problems and difficulty with her sense of time. Melody has described coping with this as like "climbing Mount Everest every day" as she often wakes with no memory of what she has to do that day.

So after her accident she began writing music and since then often speaks and advocates in favour of using music for therapy. Music involving listening and making a verbal attempt to sing or hum is thought to help the brain form new pathways. At first, Melody learned to hum and was eventually able to sing into a tape recorder. She made good progress and was eventually able to write original songs that sometimes referred to her rehabilitation.

Gardot follows the teachings of Buddhism, is a macrobiotic cook and humanitarian. She has visited various universities and hospitals to speak about its ability to help reconnect neural pathways in the brain, improve speech ability, and lift general spirits. In a recent interview she was rumored to be working closely in a university in the United States to help develop a program for music therapy and the management of pain, something she has spoken about establishing in the future on her own.

Gardot started music lessons at the age of nine and began playing piano in Philadelphia bars at the age of sixteen on Fridays and Saturdays for four hours a night. Her first full-length album was entitled Worrisome Heart. After meeting her in New York City in 2008, producer Larry Klein began working with Gardot and they released her second album, My One and Only Thrill, on April 28, 2009.

Melody is a woman who suffered a lot but the accident helped her becoming a better person and singer. Her music is so good that it very difficult to describe. She seems to have Latin influences as in many songs there are Latin beats.