The 'heartbreaking experiences' shaping Melinda Schneider's music

"I'm pretty stressed, there's a lot going on in my life," Schneider told The Senior.

"I'm in the 'Sandwich Generation'. I have been for about a year."

Schneider said she is struggling to balance looking after her teenage son and caring for mum Mary Schneider, also a singer, and known as "Australia's Queen of Yodelling".

"Mum's 93 and I had to move her into full-time care. She's very up and down health wise," she said.

"That's the mode I'm in, and it's very exhausting.

"Quite a few of my girlfriends have also got ailing parents, and we sort of commiserate with each other and share each other's grief."

At just three years old, Schneider belted out her first cover of Barbra Streisand hit The Way We Were, singing and playing the chords on ukulele, after being taught the 1973 hit by her mother.

"My mother had very high expectations of me at three," she said.

"She taught me the chords on the ukulele, and I learned it, and I used to sing it backstage for the musicians at her shows."

But the highs and the lows have helped her forge success through storytelling.

Over the ensuing four decades, the singer-songwriter has gone on to release 14 albums, and win six Golden Guitar awards.

Following the 2026 release of her latest album Tender, her first new album in almost a decade, Schneider said she drew inspiration from her family and her deep passion for social justice.

After spending years living in Nashville, the country music capital of the world, the singer-songwriter adopted the local philosophy of "writing what you know".

"You just have to draw from what you've been through," she said.

"They also say you're not a real country singer unless you've had at least one divorce, and I've had one of those.

"All of these really heartbreaking experiences make you a better songwriter."

But Tender also exudes a lot of joy, as the 54-year-old embraces motherhood and marks 18 years with her husband, Mark Gable, singer of The Choirboys.

"I've been with my darling husband, Mark for nearly 18 years, and there's a lot to celebrate there," she said.

"There's a lot of songs that are really positive for women on this album and celebrations of healthy, kind loving relationships."

After becoming a fan of Streisand at a young age, Schneider is preparing to star in Streisand tribute show The Way We Were, which is touring nationally later this year.

"I'm looking forward to it, because they're just such incredible songs, and they're so emotional," she said.

"I'm putting a lot of work into making them as perfect as I can, because Babs is a real perfectionist," she said.

"I have been (a perfectionist) over my career, but I'm a recovering perfectionist now.

"I'm a little more kind to myself."

After learning more about the American singer during her research for the show, Schneider now feels the two may have had similar childhoods, which pushed them to seek out the limelight.

"She's got a lot of sadness there from childhood, from not really being seen or heard."

Many performers often say their childhoods lacked validation, which left them in "search of other places to get it," she said.

While imitating Streisand's voice is "not easy", her love for the 84-year-old Grammy Award winner's music continues to inspire her.

"I'll definitely be making the audience laugh, and no doubt making them cry with some of these really beautiful songs," she said.

"They're really well written. They're evergreen. They're just classic songs."