Melanie On Air

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Melanie is still out there. In the mid-80s she is regularly to be found recording stunning new material as well as headlining huge international folk festivals. This year alone she has performed sell-out concerts in New York, Philadelphia. Florida and across Europe.

It would be easy to call Melanie a folk singer. but that's way off the beam. Yes, Melanie was a long-haired girl with an acoustic guitar, but the songs she sang never fitted easily into any bracket. Looking at those who preceded her, there was little of Joan Baez about Melanie. not a lot of Joni Mitchell. and no resemblance whatsoever to Janis Joplin or Grace Slick. Melanie was a one-off proposition whose songs ranged from the gospel-influenced 'Lay Down' to the whimsical "Brand New Key", the bitter "What Have They Done To My Song? Ma", and the biting anti-music-biz classic. "The Nickel Song"

Having made her first live radio appearance at the age of four. Long Island born Melanie Safka was a seasoned performer by the time she attracted record company attention in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village. Her first deal. with CBS. brought no success, but a move to Buddah in 1969 was followed by the million-selling hit "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)'" inspired by that Woodstock performance where the crowd had responded to a torrential downpour of rain by lighting candles.

Her crowning moment, however, came in 1971 when the joyfully childlike "Brand New Key", which she'd knocked off in fifteen minutes as a light in-concert filler, topped the Billboard singles chart for three weeks.

Although one British rock paper voted her the World's Top Female Artist in 1970, her record sales here never matched her American triumphs, and her biggest British audience was at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival where she was given, and succeeded in. the unenviable task of following The Who, just as dawn was rising.

In those days. there was no other voice quite like Melanie's and no other female singer with the possible exception of Laura Nyro could match her intensity or her kooky delivery. Now, of course, we have an entire new breed of kooks from Suzanne Vega to Tori Amos but it's an education in itself to go back and listen to Melanie with them in mind.

Melanie is herself fresh from the studio, having just recorded two superb albums of brand new material: "Antlers", her first Christmas album. available later this year. and "LowCountry" to be released early next year.

Melanie was always out there, and she always will be.

Johnny Black
August. 1997