Melanie, ‘Brand New Key’ Folk Singer Who Played Woodstock, Dead at 76
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Melanie, the chart-topping folk singer of “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” who performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, died on Tuesday. She was 76.
Billy James, the singer’s rep, confirmed her death to Rolling Stone, but did not provide a cause of death. “We are heartbroken, but want to thank each and every one of you for the affection you have for our Mother, and to tell you that she loved all of you so much!,” the children of the singer born Melania Safka wrote in a statement.
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“She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that,” the statement continued. “Our world is much dimmer, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today, but we know that she is still here, smiling down on all of us, on all of you, from the stars.”
Born on Feb. 3, 1947 in Astoria, New York, Melanie studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was influenced by both the folk scene of the day and the music of Edith Piaf, Kurt & Weill, Blossom Dearie, and her own mother Polly, a jazz singer.
Less than a year after the Queens-born artist released her 1968 debut album Born to Be with Buddah Records, Melanie found herself onstage in front of hundreds of thousands of people at Woodstock.
“I had never performed in front of so many people in my life. I was just thrown into it, and I had my first out-of-body experience. I was terrified, I had to leave. I started walking across that bridge to the stage, and I just left my body, going to a side, higher view. I watched myself walk onto the stage, sit down and sing a couple of lines. And when I felt it was safe, I came back,” Melanie told Rolling Stone in 1989 of the experience.
“It started to rain right before I went on,” she added. “Ravi Shankar had just finished up his performance, and the announcer said that if you lit candles, it would help to keep the rain away. By the time I finished my set, the whole hillside was a mass of little flickering lights. I guess that’s one of the reasons I came back to my body.”
The Woodstock performance would soon inspire Melanie’s Top 10 single “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” recorded with the Edwin Hawkins Singers. The hit song was followed by the release of “Peace Will Come,” “What Have They Done to My Song Ma,” “The Nickel Song,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”
Melanie would go on to found Neighborhood Records, the first female-owned independent label in rock history, according to her reps. “Brand New Key,” her first track for Neighborhood, topped charts across the world including the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
Melanie remained an independent artist throughout much of her career, releasing Ballroom Streets (1978), Arabesque (1982), Am I Real Or What (1985), Precious Cargo (1991), Old Bitch Warrior (1995), and Ever Since You Never Heard Of Me (2010).
In early January, per her label, Melanie recorded a cover of Morrissey’s “Ouija Board Ouija Board” for an upcoming tribute album. (Morrissey previously covered Melanie’s “Some Say (I Got Devil)” from her 1971 album Gather Me.) She had also recorded a rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” for a planned compilation of covers Second Hand Smoke, which would have marked her 32nd studio album.
Covers of Radiohead’s “Creep,” the Moody Blues’ “Nights In White Satin,” Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence,” and David Bowie’s “Everyone Says Hi” were also among the songs scheduled to feature on the record.
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