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- Melanie, the singer-songwriter identified for her rise within the New York folks scene, has died at the age of 76 in central Tennessee.
- Best identified for her 1971 hit “Brand New Key,” the track topped charts within the U.S. and different nations.
- She additionally gained fame with hits like “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”
Melanie, the singer-songwriter who rose via the New York folks scene, carried out at Woodstock and had a sequence of Seventies hits together with the enduring cultural phenomenon “Brand New Key,” has died.
Her publicist Billy James informed The Associated Press that Melanie died Tuesday. She was 76 and lived in central Tennessee. The trigger was not instantly revealed.
“Our world is much dimmer, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today,” her kids Leilah, Jeordie and Beau Jarred, mentioned in a put up on her Facebook web page saying her loss of life.
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With a voice that might shift from high-pitched and coy to a deep soulful rasp, Melanie wrote and sang hits together with “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”
(*76*)(*76*)(*76*)(*76*)Melanie performs on Sept. 6, 2018 in Hamburg, Germany. The singer-songwriter who rose via the New York folks scene, carried out at Woodstock and had a sequence of Seventies hits together with “Brand New Key” has died. (Isa Foltin/Getty Images)
She was finest identified for “Brand New Key,” a track from her 1971 album “Gather Me” that she wrote about a couple of woman who bikes and skates previous the home of a boy she longs for. It grew to become a No. 1 hit within the U.S. and several other different nations.
With echoes of the common songs of the ‘20s and ’30s, it combines a youthful simplicity with a winking grownup sophistication in its refrain:
“Well, I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand-new key, I think that we should get together, and try them on to see.”
She would say in later interviews that she did not essentially intend sexual innuendo within the track, however those that heard it weren’t essentially improper.
“I probably have a quirky way of writing, and I think I was misunderstood,” she informed the Tennessean newspaper in 2014. “I had this smiling, cherubic thing, and I think that worked against me. Girls with guitars who were relevant were angst-filled and angular.”
The track has had a number of revivals within the many years since. It had a key place in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 movie “Boogie Nights” and was lip-synced by Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” in 2016.
Born Melanie Safka, the daughter of a jazz singer, in Queens, New York, she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and carried out within the espresso homes of Greenwich Village and different New York folks hubs.
She launched her self-titled debut album in 1969, and had hit songs in Europe with “Bobo’s Party” and “Beautiful People.”
That summer time, she was one in every of solely three feminine solo performers, together with Joan Baez and Janis Joplin, to carry out at the generation-defining Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York.
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The candles the group held up throughout her opening-night set at the competition impressed her first U.S. hit, 1970’s “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” which went to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. That similar 12 months got here “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma,” which might be coated by artists from Ray Charles to Miley Cyrus and tailored into industrial jingles for many years after.
“People in the Front Row,” a danceable jam from 1971’s “Garden in the City,” bought distinguished placement in the latest season of “Black Mirror.”
By the mid-Seventies her reputation waned, however she would preserve a following and preserve recording and enjoying reside into the 2010s.
Melanie was married to her supervisor and producer Peter Schekeryk from 1968 till his loss of life in 2010. They had three youngsters collectively.
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