Melanie, the singer-songwriter who rose to prominence on the New York folk scene, performed at Woodstock and recorded a string of hits in the 1970s, including Brand New Keyis dead.
Her spokesman Billy James told The Associated Press that Melanie died Tuesday. She was 76 years old and lived in middle Tennessee. The cause was not immediately revealed.
“Our world is much darker, the colors of dreary, rainy Tennessee fading with his absence today,” his children Leilah, Jeordie and Beau Jarred said in a post on his Facebook page announcing his death.
With a voice that could go from a high, shy timbre to a raspy, deep, soulful timbre, Melanie wrote and sang hits such as Look What They’ve Done to My Song, My And Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).
She was best known for Brand New Keya song from his album Gather Me from 1971 in which she writes about a girl who rides her bike and skates in front of the house of a boy she dreams of. It became a number one hit in the United States and several other countries.
Echoing popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, it combines youthful simplicity with adult sophistication.
The song has been covered several times over the decades that followed. She also played a key role in the film Boogie Nights by Paul Thomas Anderson in 1997.
From Queens to Woodstock
Melanie Safka was born to a jazz singer father in the Queens neighborhood of New York. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and performed in the cafes of Greenwich Village and other New York folk centers.
She released her self-titled debut album in 1969 and enjoyed success in Europe with Bobo’s Party And Beautiful People.
That summer, she was one of only three female solo artists, along with Joan Baez and Janis Joplin, to perform at the generation-defining Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York. York.
The candles the crowd held aloft during the festival’s opening night inspired his first American hit, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) of the 1970s, which reached number six on the Billboard charts. The same year was released Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Mya song that would be covered by artists from Ray Charles to Miley Cyrus and adapted into commercials for decades afterward.
By the mid-1970s, her popularity waned, but she maintained a following and continued to record and perform until the 2010s.
Mélanie was married to her manager and producer Peter Schekeryk from 1968 until his death in 2010. They had three children together.