Product Code Database
Melanie Anne Safka Schekeryk (February 3, 1947 – January 23, 2024), professionally known as Melanie or Melanie Safka, was an American singer-songwriter.
Melanie is widely known for the 1971–72 global hit "Brand New Key", her 1970 version of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday", her composition "What Have They Done to My Song Ma", and her 1970 international breakthrough hit "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)", which was inspired by her experience of performing at the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
Later in 1969, Melanie had a hit in the Netherlands with "Beautiful People". She was one of only three solo female artists who performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and her first hit song, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)", was inspired by the Woodstock audience lighting candles during her set as well as being influenced by her following of Indian spiritual master Meher Baba. The record became a hit in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States in 1970. The B-side of the single featured Melanie's spoken-word track, "Candles in the Rain". Her first top 10 hit in America was "Lay Down", which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard singles chart and achieved worldwide success. Her later hits included "Peace Will Come (According To Plan)" and a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday".
In 1970, Melanie was the only artist to ignore a court injunction banning the Powder Ridge Rock Festival, which was scheduled to be held on July 31, August 1 and 2, 1970. She played for the crowd on a homemade stage powered by Mister Softee trucks. Not long after this performance, she played at the Strawberry Fields Festival held from August 7 to 9, 1970, at Mosport Park in Ontario, Canada. She also performed at the Isle of Wight Festival, held between August 26 and 30, 1970, at Afton Down. At the festival, she was introduced by Keith Moon and received four standing ovations. She appeared again at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2010. In June 1971, she was the artist who sang to herald in the summer solstice at Glastonbury Fayre (later the Glastonbury Festival) in England. She performed again at Glastonbury in 2011, the 40th anniversary of the original festival. Uncut, July 2011. Melanie left Buddah Records when they insisted that she produce albums on demand. In 1971, she formed her own label, Neighborhood Records, with Peter Schekeryk, who was also her producer and husband. She had her biggest American hit on the Neighborhood label, the novelty-sounding late 1971 No. 1 hit "Brand New Key" (often referred to as "The Roller Skate Song"). "Brand New Key" sold over three million copies worldwide and was featured in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights.
When first released, "Brand New Key" was banned by some radio stations because some inferred sexual innuendo in the lyrics. Melanie acknowledged the possibility of reading an unintended sexual innuendo in the song, stating:
I wrote 'Brand in about fifteen minutes one night. I thought it was cute; a kind of old thirties tune. I guess a key and a lock have always been Psychoanalysis symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it. They made up incredible stories as to what the lyrics said and what the song meant. In some places, it was even banned from the radio ... My idea about songs is that once you write them, you have very little say in their life afterward ... People will take it any way they want to take it.
In a 2013 interview with music journalist Ray Shasho, Melanie elaborated on the origin of "Brand New Key":
Of course I can see it symbolically with the key, but I just thought of roller skating. I was fasting with a twenty seven day fast on water. I broke the fast and went back to my life living in New Jersey and we were going to a flea market around six in the morning. On the way back ... and I had just broken the fast, from the flea market, we passed a McDonald's and the aroma hit me, and I had been a vegetarian before the fast. So we pulled into the McDonald's and I got the whole works ... the burger, the shake and the fries ... and no sooner after I finished that last bite of my burger ... that song was in my head. The aroma brought back memories of roller skating and learning to ride a bike and the vision of my dad holding the back fender of the tire. And me saying to my dad ... "You're holding, you're holding, you're holding, right?" Then I'd look back and he wasn't holding and I'd fall. So that whole thing came back to me and came out in this song. So it was not a deliberate or intentional sexual innuendo.
The follow-up single to "Brand New Key" was "Ring the Living Bell". To compete with this release, Melanie's former record company released "The Nickel Song", which she had recorded while still signed to Buddah Records. Both songs were simultaneous top 40 hits while "Brand New Key" was still on the charts, setting a record for the first female performer to have three top 40 hits at the same time.American Top 40, February 26, 1972
Melanie won Billboards No. 1 Top Female Vocalist award for 1972 and was awarded two gold albums, and a gold single for "Brand New Key". Three of her compositions were hits for the New Seekers. She is also known for her musical adaptations of children's songs, including "Alexander Beetle" and "Christopher Robin". When she became an official UNICEF ambassador in 1972, she agreed to forgo a world tour in favor of raising money for the organization. She also took time to raise her daughter.
Melanie had another top 40 hit single in 1973 with "Bitter Bad", a song that marked a slight departure from the hippie sentiments of her earlier hits, with lyrics such as "If you do me wrong I'll put your first and last name in my rock n' roll song". Melanie's other chart hits during this period were the self-penned "Together Alone" and a cover of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", which reached No 37 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1974.
In 1983, Melanie wrote the music and lyrics for a musical theatre, Ace of Diamonds, with a book by Ed Kelleher and Seymour Vall based on a series of letters written by Annie Oakley. Though never fully produced, several Stage reading were performed at Lincoln Center, with Melanie as the narrator and pop singer and actress Annie Golden as Oakley.
Melanie won an Emmy Award for writing the lyrics to the theme song for the television series Beauty and the Beast. With one exception, her albums were produced by her husband, Peter Schekeryk, who died suddenly in 2010.Melanie, quoted in Uncut, July 2011 Her three children — Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau-Jarred — are also musicians. Beau-Jarred is a guitarist and accompanied his mother on tour.
One of Melanie's later albums, Paled By Dimmer Light (2004), was co-produced by Peter and Beau-Jarred Schekeryk and includes the songs "To Be The One", "Extraordinary", "Make It Work", and "I Tried To Die Young". In 2007, Melanie was invited by Jarvis Cocker to perform at the Meltdown festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Her sold-out performance was critically acclaimed, with The Independent saying, "It was hard to disagree that Melanie has earned her place alongside Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Nico, and Marianne Faithfull in the pantheon of iconic female singers. Meltdown was all the better for her presence." The concert was filmed for a DVD, Melanie: For One Night Only, which was released in October 2007. She recorded "Psychotherapy", sung to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", which parodied aspects of Freudian psychoanalysis. The song has been played on The Dr. Demento Show. In July 2012, Melanie headlined along with Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collins at the 15th annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, which is held to celebrate Woody Guthrie's life and music.Webb, Jela. Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (Okemah, Oklahoma July 11 –15, 2012). No Depression, July 20, 2012. Also published in Maverick Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 2012, Issue #117, p. 20.
In October 2012, Melanie collaborated with John Haldoupis, artistic and managing director of Blackfriars Theatre in Rochester, New York, to create an original musical about her love story with her late husband. Melanie and the Record Man made its premiere on October 19, with performances scheduled until October 28. The musical, conceived and designed by Haldoupis, featured Melanie's music and told the story of meeting Peter, falling in love, and working together to produce her music. Melanie performed during the musical and was also the narrator. In June 2014, she toured Australia for the first time since 1977.
In April 2015, Melanie was inducted into Red Bank Regional's "Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame". In May 2015, she was invited by Miley Cyrus to collaborate with her for the Backyard Sessions, to help raise funds and awareness for Cyrus' Happy Hippie Foundation. On New Year's Eve 2019, she performed on the BBC's Jools' Annual Hootenanny.
At the time of her death in 2024, Melanie was working on a covers album titled Second Hand Smoke.
Melanie identified herself politically as a libertarian, stating, "I am not a Democrat, a Socialism, or a Republican." She said that she had experienced acceptance from a "universal force of motherhood" after receiving a hug from Mata Amritanandamayi, a.k.a. Amma ("Mother") or the "hugging saint" from India, as she is also known, which had inspired her to write "Motherhood of Love".
Melanie resided in the Nashville metropolitan area. She died on January 23, 2024, at the age of 76. Her three children shared their mother's death in a Facebook post and her representatives mentioned "an illness", but no cause was given.
Notes
Further reading
Discography
Other credits
External links
Categories: 1947 Births, 2024 Deaths, 20th-century American Guitarists, 20th-century American Singer-songwriters, 20th-century American Women Guitarists, 20th-century American Women Singers, 21st-century American Singer-songwriters, 21st-century American Women Singers, American Academy Of Dramatic Arts Alumni, American Acoustic Guitarists, American Folk Guitarists, American Folk Singers, American Women Folk Singers, American Libertarians, American People Of Italian Descent, American People Of Russian Descent, American People Of Ukrainian Descent, American Women Singer-songwriters, Buddah Records Artists, Followers Of Meher Baba, Guitarists From New York, Guitarists From Tennessee, Long Branch High School Alumni, Musicians From Long Branch, New Jersey, People From Queens, New York, People From Astoria, Queens, Primetime Emmy Award Winners, Red Bank Regional High School Alumni, Singer-songwriters From New York, Singer-songwriters From Tennessee
|
|
