Melanie: An Interview

Melanie Safka was rifling through more than 30 years of musical memories and plucking out some of her favorite moments.
There was her performance at Woodstock in 1969, her appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 and one particluarly memorable slot on the fabled Ed Sullivan Show.

During Melanie's appearance, Sullivan allowed fans to gather around her while she played. What the seemingly stodgy Sullivan allowed was something that has remained Melanie to this day: 'He let me be who I was.'

Melanie was born in Astoria, Queens, at the westernmost edge of the borough looking up at the glittering Manhattan skyline with all its promises. She inherited musical skills from her mother and learned to sing and play guitar, but her goal was to become an actress.

'I went to acting school, but I was really shy about going to auditions,' she says, adding that she felt a little out of place. 'Those were conservative times. We're talking 'Fiddler on the Roof' times and I was a hippie,' she laughs. 'And this is before there even were hippies. It was still the time of the beatniks.'

She recalls one significant audition.
'They wanted a girl who played the guitar - which was really freaky at the time - for the character of Barbara Allen in 'Dark of the Moon.'''

With the address in her hand she ran to the audition, but ended up by mistake at the Brill Building, a musical hit factory at the time with offices providing spaces for some of the biggest songwriters, publishers and music industry people of the time. Her accidental audition resulted in her recording the demo for her song 'Beautiful People.'

The song became her first release and introduced Melanie to its producer - Peter Shekeryk. Their partnership became a lifelong alliance. Shekeryk, Melanie's husband, runs the business end of things. The couple has three children, all of whom are involved in music.

Melanie was working in England in 1969 when she returned to New York to appear at a three-day gathering in Bethel in August. She was interested in performing there because, 'It sounded like camping for three days out in the country,' she says. 'So I asked (the promoters): 'Can I do it? They said: Sure, kid.' '

At festival time, she realized, like most, how she underestimated the scale of the concert. Traffic was at a standstill and the gridlock required many performers to arrive by helicopter. The musical lineup featured some of rock's biggest names.

'I thought, 'Oh my god, there's Janis Joplin,' ' she says. It was a weekend that a 22-year-old novice musician could only fantasize about - surrounded by pop music royalty and faced with the prospect of performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people. 'I thought, 'I'm just a girl with a guitar, they're never going to put me on that stage.' '

The nervousness among the performers was evident right from the first morning. 'I could hear Richie (Havens) when he was singing 'Freedom...Freedom...Freedom...' It was scary.'

While she waited in a tent to go on, extreme anxiety brought on a coughing attack. 'I started getting this real deep bronchial cough. Joan Baez heard me coughing and she sent an assistant over with a pot of hot tea. It was like nectar of the Gods.'

Shortly after Ravi Shankar performed, the sky threatened rain. 'I thought, 'If it rains then I won't have to play,' ' she recalls. Instead, a legendary concert moment was born. 'People from the Hog Farm or some other group were saying some inspirational things about lighting candles to keep the rain away.' As the candles began to flicker, she was told it was her turn to take the stage.

'So I had to walk the plank and I watched the hillside (become) completely lit up with candles, like the flickering millions,' she says. 'I had an out of body experience.'

A few days later, she put the experience to song. 'I started thinking about it, what literally was right in front of me,' Melanie says.

A year later, the song was played on radio stations across the country. 'We were so close, there was no room/ we bled inside each other's wounds...'

'Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)' sold a million copies and showcased a singer who began the rock concert tradition of striking matches and holding their flames aloft.

After stringing together a number of hits in the early 1970s and world-wide tours, she grew frustrated with the box that music executives were trying to put her in.

'There were so many things I wanted to do. I wanted more creative freedom. And I didn't like the image they were coming up with,' she says. With her anthem, 'Look what they done to my song' Melanie became an independent artist. She and her husband formed Neighborhood Records and set up the stage for her versatile style to fully blossom in any way she imagined.

What she did not anticipate, however, was the popularity of a cute, catchy tune that only took a few minutes to write to capture everyone's attention.

'Ironically, my husband put out 'Brand New Key' and ruined my life forever,' she says of the song consumed by a mass audience that pigeonholed her more than the major labels managing her career. 'Of course, it became a big hit,' she scoffs, sarcastically.

Thirty years, three children, and a lifetime of concerts have passed.
For pop historians documenting the past, it has been some journey.
For the artist who continues to write, create, release independent records and tour the globe,
these are all just steps along the path of the long, winding, and endless road.

by Thomas Dimopoulos
The Saratogian, June 2004.