The musician celebrated her breakthrough in Woodstock.
In 1969, Melanie Safka, better known as Melanie, gained notoriety through her performance at the Woodstock Festival and later scored hits such as “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Handels in the Rain)”. She died on January 23rd at the age of 76.
“Our world is much darker today”
Her children shared the news on Facebook. “It is very difficult for us to write this message and there are so many things we want to say first and there is no easy way but to say it… Mom passed peacefully from this world to the on January 23, 2024 the next one,” is how the lines from Leilah, Jeordie and Beau Jarred begin.
They continue to write that they are heartbroken, but they thank “everyone” for the affection towards Safka and say that their mother loved her fans very much. “She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of her time, and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that,” they continued.
“Our world is much darker today, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee fading in her absence, but we know she is still here, smiling down from the stars on all of us, on all of you.”
Their children are planning a “celebration of life” for the deceased to which everyone who would like to honor her is invited, they wrote. “Please leave us, her family, alone during this time as we mourn her, remember her, and figure out how to navigate this crazy world without her.”
See the post here:
“I even had my mother with me”
In 1969, Melanie Safka was flown by helicopter onto the stage at the Woodstock Festival. The singer was 22 years old at the time. She told The Guardian in 2021 that she was nervous about performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people. The musician waited for hours to perform while her nervousness grew. “It was an incredibly scary day,” Safka said. “I just thought it would be a weekend of singing. I imagined families with picnic blankets and crafts. “I had no idea,” she continued, describing her expectations. “I walked into the lobby and there was Janis Joplin. I thought, ‘I can’t do that. I don’t have any hit records, nobody knows who I am.’ I had no musicians with me, no roadie – but I had my mother with me!”
“The terror grew within me. The thought that I was going to be performing in front of all these people and on this huge stage – I was all alone.” Then it started to rain. Safka believed that everyone would go home. “It’s raining, I’m free, I’m going back to life as it was. Maybe I’ll become an archaeologist, maybe I’ll join the Peace Corps. Then they said: ‘You’re next’.”
Watch Melanie’s Woodstock performance here
Melanie after the Woodstock Festival
The folk singer captured the atmosphere of the festival in her 1970 single “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)”. In the same year, Safka released a cover version of “Ruby Tuesday” by the Rolling Stones, which also landed in the top ten of the charts in Germany. In 1971, the now deceased continued to have success with the song “Brand New Key” and received a gold record for it.
Melanie Safka was active until the end, she continued to be on stage and worked on new music. Most recently, the musician was busy with an album of cover songs. The record, entitled SECOND HAND SMOKE, would have been her 32nd record, as her label Cleopatra announced.