Melissa Etheridge to Hit the Road

Rocker to launch first tour since battle with cancer

A new perspective

Melissa Etheridge will launch her first tour since announcing she was officially cancer-free last October. So far, just six dates for the summer jaunt have been announced: June 30th in Long Beach, California; July 1st in Los Angeles; July 21st and 22nd in Chicago; July 25th in New York; and July 28th in Lowell, Massachusetts.

In addition, Etheridge told Rolling Stone last fall she hopes to release an album of new material this year. "I have a new perspective and focus on life," she said, "so all that's going to come into my music."

The rocker is also developing an ABC sitcom with That 70's Show producer Linda Wallem, about what her life would be like if she'd stayed in her hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas. She explained, "It's just a blue-girl-in-a-red-state sort of story."

Etheridge's greatest-hits collection, The Road Less Traveled, featuring the breast-cancer awareness anthem "This Is Not Goodbye," bowed at Number Fourteen last October.

JESSICA ROBERTSON @ Rolling Stone