Happy Birthday, Melissa Etheridge! The musician and cancer survivor turns 48 today. An Oscar and Grammy Award winning singer, Etheridge is best known for her blend of pop-infused folk rock and gay rights activism.

In 2004 Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. She learned she had been nominated for a Grammy award in the midst of chemotherapy. Since cancer treatment sometimes impaired her ability to move and speak, she had decided not to attend the ceremony. But when she was invited to sing in a Janis Joplin tribute, she knew she had to go. “I knew that my own adrenaline could absolutely carry me through for two and a half minutes,” she said in an interview with Dateline NBC. “I knew I could do it. And I wanted to do it.”

Watch Etheridge and Joss Stone perform Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” at the 2005 Grammy Awards. Click here to read more on Etheridge.