Melanie Safka, the American singer-songwriter known as Melanie who had a global hit with Brand New Key, has died aged 76.
Her children Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred announced her death on social media, describing her as “one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that”. No cause of death has been given.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, Melanie broke through in the late 1960s after a grounding in the folk clubs of New York’s Greenwich Village. Chiming with the boom in singer-songwriters, her bright but husky voice appealed to pop fans and the counterculture alike, and she was signed to the Buddah label which released her debut album Born to Be in 1968. She first found success in Europe, with the album going Top 10 in France and the Netherlands.
Along with Janis Joplin and Joan Baez, she was one of only three solo women appearing at the Woodstock festival in 1969 – “an unbelievably frightening day”, she later said. “I never even felt like I was a hippy, I didn’t like the term. If anything, I was the beat generation – people in the Village expressing themselves in so many ways, not being pigeonholed.”
She showed off her vocal range with the gospel-tinged single Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), a US Top 10 hit – it was inspired by the sight of the Woodstock crowd lighting candles – and the accompanying 1970 album Candles in the Rain brought her to wider attention, reaching No 5 in the UK. Her version of the Rolling Stones’ Ruby Tuesday was also a UK hit that year, and a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall was recorded for a successful live album.
But 1971 would be her biggest year yet, with the album Gather Me and its lead single Brand New Key. With its blithe and jaunty rhythm, twinkling backing and Melanie’s mellifluous nursery-rhyme melodies, it had huge cross-generational appeal, although its lyrics about roller-skating seemed to be a metaphor for sexual experimentation. “I guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols,” she said, “and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it.” It reached No 1 in the US, Canada and Australia and reached the UK Top 5; a cover version with different agriculture-focused lyrics by comedy group the Wurzels, The Combine Harvester, reached No 1 in the UK in 1976.
Brand New Key would be her last major hit, although she returned to the UK Top 40 with her take on 60s pop standard Will You Love Me Tomorrow? in 1973. Melanie continued to release a steady stream of albums, eventually totalling 28 with the most recent, Ever Since You Never Heard of Me, in 2010. She developed a cult following, including notable musicians such as Morrissey, who covered her Gather Me song Some Say (I Got Devil), and Jarvis Cocker, who introduced her on stage in London in 2007.
In 1968 she married Peter Schekeryk, who was also the producer of all her major releases. They had three children together and their marriage lasted until his death in 2010.
