She sang her critically-panned "Brand New Key" in a television commercial for the Fisher- Price Toy Company. Melanie eventually returned to the studio and recorded several albums throughout the 1980s. In 1978, she released the album Phonogenic, Not Just Another Pretty Face, for Midsong International, before once again retiring from the music business.
She returned in 1975 on the Atlantic label with Photograph, an album that was, ironically, praised by the critics and virtually ignored by the public. They were no more impressed with her 1972 follow-up, "The Nickel Song." Disillusioned by the unkind reviews, Melanie took a respite from music and focused her attentions on her family. In 1971 Melanie's tribute to roller skating, "Brand New Key," reached Number One on the pop charts, but critics were less than enthused with the cute, inane ditty. Six months later the album reached platinum status and earned her "top female vocalist of the year" awards from Billboard, Melody Maker, Bravo, and Cashbox. She released Candles in the Rain in 1970. By the time I finished my set, the whole hillside was a mass of little flickering lights."Ĭandle-lighting fans became a feature of Melanie's concerts, sometimes leading to trouble with authorities because of the potential fire hazard. And when I felt it was safe, I came back." Performing at Woodstock inspired Melanie to write and record her 1970 peace anthem "Lay Down"- subtitled "Candles in the Rain." She told Rolling Stone: "It started to rain right before I went on and the announcer said that if you lit candles, it would help to keep the rain away. I watched myself walk onto the stage, sit down and sing a couple of lines. I started across that bridge to the stage, and I just left my body. I had never performed in front of so many people in my life. Decades later, she reminisced about the event for Rolling Stone: "It was magical. That same year, Melanie was invited to play at the now- historic rock festival, Woodstock. Her first single, "Beautiful People," became a moderate hit, but Melanie was dissatisfied with Columbia and switched to the Buddha label, where she recorded the album Born to Be, which contained 1969's smash hit "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma." In 1967 she landed a recording contract with Columbia Records. Melanie signed with a music publishing company and was assigned to producer Peter Schekeryk, whom she later married. Descriptions of the people wanted never me." She did manage to secure an acting role, but due to lack of funds, the play was never produced. "So I would sit there, reading the theatrical trade papers. "I was always simply too afraid to get up and say 'this is what I am,'" she confessed in Seventeen. Though the young thespian enjoyed her drama studies, she found it extremely difficult to audition for acting jobs. I would sing all the Peter, Paul and Mary songs, four and five hours, for $20." After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, but continued to ply her musical trade in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village. At age 16, Melanie was hired to sing at a local club where, she told Miller, "I worked Monday nights. When Melanie was a teenager, the family moved to southern New Jersey, where despite her mother's blues influence, she was drawn to the New York folk scene and the music of artists Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.
#Where is melanie safka today professional
At age four, Melanie made her professional debut on a radio show called "Live Like a Millionaire," where she sang and played the ukelele. "My mother always encouraged me," Melanie recalled to Miller. Her mother was a blues singer at the local clubs who fostered a love of music in her daughter and entered her in area talent contests.
Melanie was born Melanie Safka on February 3, 1947, in Queens, New York. Edwin Miller of Seventeen magazine observed that her "urgent ballads bind you to her with invisible threads of emotion." During the early 1970s, Melanie's gentle, acoustic sound on songs like "Lay Down," "Beautiful People," and "Brand New Key" was in sharp contrast to the hard-driving, heavy-metal rock that dominated the charts. Known professionally as simply Melanie, she is best known for her hits "Brand New Key", "Ruby Tuesday", "What Have They Done To My Song Ma" and "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)".įolk singer-songwriter Melanie recorded her first album in 1967 and attracted national attention as well as a loyal fan following two years later when she performed at Woodstock, the legendary rock festival. Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk is an American singer-songwriter.
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