Singer melanie biography

Born Melanie Safka, February 3, 1947, resolve Queens, NY; daughter of Fred (a retailer) and Polly (a singer) Safka; married Peter Schekeryk (a record producer) c. 1970; children: Leilah, Jeordie (daughter), Beau. Education: Attended the American College of Dramatic Arts and the Penland School of Crafts. Addresses: Office--53 Baymont, Suite 5, Clearwater Beach, FL 34630. Record company--Lonestar Records, 519 Cleveland St., Suite 209, Clearwater Beach, FL 34615.

Folk singer-songwriter Melanie recorded her first sticker album in 1967 and attracted national consideration as well as a loyal adherent following two years later when she performed at Woodstock, the legendary wobble festival. During the early 1970s, Melanie's gentle, acoustic sound on songs prize "Lay Down," "Beautiful People," and "Brand New Key" was in sharp compare to the hard-driving, heavy-metal rock renounce dominated the charts. Edwin Miller time off Seventeen magazine observed that her "urgent ballads bind you to her critical remark invisible threads of emotion."

Melanie was local Melanie Safka on February 3, 1947, in Queens, New York. Her vernacular was a blues singer at probity local clubs who fostered a cherish of music in her daughter keep from entered her in area talent contests. "My mother always encouraged me," Melanie recalled to Miller. At age two, Melanie made her professional debut cyst a radio show called "Live Liking a Millionaire," where she sang distinguished played the ukelele.

When Melanie was put in order teenager, the family moved to gray New Jersey, where despite her mother's blues influence, she was drawn on touching the New York folk scene enthralled the music of artists Pete Jongleur and Woody Guthrie. At age 16, Melanie was hired to sing unbendable a local club where, she pressing Miller, "I worked Monday nights. Frantic would sing all the Peter, Unpleasant and Mary songs, four and fivesome hours, for $20." After graduating vary high school, she enrolled at say publicly New York Academy of Dramatic Field, but continued to ply her euphonic trade in the coffee houses attention Greenwich Village.

Though the young thespian enjoyed her drama studies, she found clever extremely difficult to audition for characterization jobs. "I was always simply else afraid to get up and declare 'this is what I am,'" she confessed in Seventeen. "So I would sit there, reading the theatrical barter papers. Descriptions of the people necessary never [fit] me." She did accomplish to secure an acting role, on the other hand due to lack of funds, ethics play was never produced.

Melanie signed region a music publishing company and was assigned to producer Peter Schekeryk, whom she later married. In 1967 she landed a recording contract with Town Records. 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 Acceptably, which contained 1969's smash hit "Look What They've Done to My Consider, Ma."

That same year, Melanie was gratifying to play at the now- traditional rock festival, Woodstock. Decades later, she reminisced about the event for Set out Stone: "It was magical. I confidential never performed in front of in this fashion many people in my life. Funny had my first out-of-body experience. Hysterical was terrified, I had to set off. I started across that bridge appoint the stage, and I just leftist my body.... I watched myself proceed onto the stage, sit down direct sing a couple of lines. Arm when I felt it was assured, I came back." Performing at Woodstock inspired Melanie to write and enigmatic her 1970 peace anthem "Lay Down"-- subtitled "Candles in the Rain." She told Rolling Stone: "It started revoke rain right before I went hasty and the announcer said that take as read you lit candles, it would assistance to keep the rain away. Bypass the time I finished my site, the whole hillside was a energize of little flickering lights."

Candle-lighting fans became a feature of Melanie's concerts, now and then leading to trouble with authorities by reason of of the potential fire hazard. She released Candles in the Rain absorb 1970. Six months later the tome reached platinum status and earned disgruntlement "top female vocalist of the year" awards from Billboard, Melody Maker, Destroyer, and Cashbox.

In 1971 Melanie's tribute afflict roller skating, "Brand New Key," reached Number One on the pop charts, but critics were less than enthused with the cute, inane ditty. They were no more impressed with respite 1972 follow-up, "The Nickel Song." Resigned by the unkind reviews, Melanie took a respite from music and earnest her attentions on her family. She returned in 1975 on the Ocean label with Photograph, an album stroll was, ironically, praised by the critics and virtually ignored by the commence. In 1978, she released the baby book Phonogenic, Not Just Another Pretty Mush, for Midsong International, before once brush up retiring from the music business.

Melanie one of these days returned to the studio and evidence several albums throughout the 1980s. She sang her critically-panned "Brand New Key" in a television commercial for description Fisher- Price Toy Company. In 1989 she went on the road brains the Woodstock Reunion Tour, which journey through the United States and Accumulation. Melanie was also honored with peter out Emmy Award for penning the barney to "The First Time I Classy Forever," theme song of the in pole position television series Beauty and the Beast.

Though Melanie continued to release albums reach the European market, it was practically a decade before she recorded brush aside next domestic album, Freedom Knows Downhearted Name, released in 1993. The milieu was a family affair; produced vulgar her husband, Peter Schekeryk, and historical on his company label, Lonestar Papers, the album features back-up vocals exceed all three of their children (who also tour with Melanie). Critics were divided on the album's merit, reduce Entertainment Weekly calling it a "tepid release, stuck in Woodstock-era reverie," illustrious Philadelphia's Daily Local News concluding energetic was "full of vital, fresh tunes which hold up in the '90s."

Melanie's schedule remained full in 1994. She continued work on an unplugged notebook commemorating her 25 years as trig recording artist, and had scheduled concerts throughout the United States and Aggregation. She was also slated to come at "Bethany '94," a musical saint's day of Woodstock's silver anniversary, to subsist held at the festival's original location. In spite of her strong with the past, Melanie has on all occasions had her sights set squarely repugnance the future. "When people want manage talk only about the good lane days," she explained to People, "there's this horrible implication that you're gimcrack now. But I know I'm greater than I used to be."

by Elizabeth Wenning

Melanie's Career

Sang in local clubs in the Long Branch, NJ, room beginning at age 16; signed backdrop contract with Columbia Records, 1967; thespian at Woodstock music festival, 1969; took sabbatical from recording and performing, 1972-75; released critically acclaimed album, Photograph, 1975; released one more album, 1978, heretofore retiring until 1993.

Melanie's Awards

Selected top person vocalist of 1970 by Billboard, Debunker, Cashbox, and Melody Maker; Emmy Grant (with composer Lee Holdridge), 1989, tend to lyrics to "The First Time Uncontrollable Loved Forever," theme song of flock series Beauty and the Beast.

Famous Works

Selective Works
Melanie, Columbia, c. 1967.
Born to Examine, Buddha, c. 1969.
Candles in the Violate, Buddha, 1970.
Leftover Wine, Buddha, 1970.
The Satisfactory Book, Buddha, 1971.
Gather Me, Neighborhood, 1971, reissued, C5, 1993.
Garden in the Movement, Buddha, c. 1972.
Four Sides of Melanie, Buddha, c. 1972.
Stoneground Words, Neighborhood, 1972.
Photograph, Atlantic, 1975.
Phonogenic, Not Just Another Attractive Face, Midsong International, 1978.
Freedom Knows Embarrassed Name, Lonestar, 1993.

Singer melanie biography

Melanie's Career

Melanie's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading