REAL GONE
Melanie
Soul-baring enchanter BORN 1947
IN HER MID-TEENS, Melanie Safka aspired to sing like Lotte Lenya and Edith Piaf. “I wanted to sound like a woman in her forties!” she once told me. But when Melanie opened her mouth, all everyone noticed was what they called her “amazing childlike quality”.
Signing her in 1968, Buddah marketed Melanie as a pop ‘Flower Child’, a tag that stuck long after the Summer of Love had wilted. In truth, the kaftan-wearing singer with the long hair and gentle, wide-eyed look, fit the bill perfectly. So too the tunes: Nickel Song, the much-covered What Have They Done To My Song Ma and Brand New Key, the 1971 hit that gave Melanie international fame, were all bounce and hooks.
It was producer and later husband Peter Schekeryk who “got me the hits”, Melanie said of the career that ignited after her 1969 Woodstock appearance. “But I wanted people to listen to the words.”