Melanie's flame still burns bright

MELANIE thought the Woodstock festival would be ‘a picnic in the park’. Instead, it became one of the most iconic concerts ever and it changed the singer’s life. JOHN MILLAR spoke to her at home in Florida.

MEMORABLE A man stands in front of a bonfire at the 1999 Woodstock festival MEMORABLE: A man stands in front of a bonfire at the 1999 Woodstock festival

Melanie went from shy little nobody to superstar after she was one of the surprise hits of the legendary Woodstock rock festival but success made the flower child too hot to handle, so hot in fact that concert hall bosses decided she was a fire hazard.

It all began with a magical moment at Woodstock when the 22-year-old Melanie, hailed by the New York Times as a female Bob Dylan, stepped on stage to be greeted by a rainswept hillside lit up by thousands of hippies holding candles.

That sight was the inspiration for one of her greatest hits, Lay Down (Candles In The Rain).

Afterwards, whenever Melanie performed that number, audiences would illuminate the theatre with matches or lighters.

“I became synonymous with people lighting something, they would bring candles or matches, so I had to sign an agreement with certain halls that I would not sing the song. I had fire marshals lining the stage ready to prevent people lighting up,” she says with a chuckle.

Now as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock draws near, the singer, whose real name of Melanie Ann Safka now seems entirely superfluous, is a 62-year-old grandmother.

However, with more than 80million record sales to her credit, she continues to hit the high notes with a series of UK gigs, which include a three-night residency at London’s Jazz Café.

Since she blossomed in the age of flower power, Melanie has had hits like Brand New Key, Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma and Peace Will Come.

Melanie’s songs have been recorded by Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Cher, Barbra Streisand and rapper Queen Latifah.

Her claims to fame also include being the first pop performer ever to sing solo at the United Nations general assembly, the New York Metropolitan Opera, Sydney Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall.

She also won an Emmy for the theme song for the TV series, Beauty and the Beast.

It all started on August 15, 1969 when a blissfully naïve Melanie headed off to Woodstock in upstate New York for what she thought was going to be a low-key gig in the countryside.

“I didn’t have any idea that it was going to be a huge event,” she says at the home in Florida that she shares with Peter Schekeryk, her husband and manager of 40 years.

“I had heard it was to be three days of peace, love and music and thought that sounded nice. I pictured it like a picnic in the park but I did think it was a bad idea to do it in August because it always rains.”

Melanie was so unaware that she was about to be involved in the greatest festival in rock history that she took her mother along.

“She picked me up and drove me to Woodstock,” she says. “When we hit all this traffic I just assumed there was a little trouble on the roadsSLpsit couldn’t possibly have something to do with the festival.

“Then we got to the hotel and there was Janis Joplin and Sly And The Family Stone and all these major groups that I had only heard about. I had maybe sung in front of 500 people in my whole life; this was big stuff!”

Helicopters shuttled the performers to the stage area and Melanie was told to get in the chopper.

“I ran over with my guitar and mother and someone yelled, ‘Who’s she?’ I said it was my mother and they said, ‘No mothers! Bands and managers only,’ so I said goodbye to my mother and as I got into the helicopter the terror was mounting.”

As Melanie flew over the thousands who had flocked to Woodstock to see stars like Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joe Cocker and Santana it finally dawned on her what she was letting herself in for.

“I had never seen anything like it. I did not feel qualified to be doing this; I had no hit records, no anything and I was sure that I was going to get up in front of these people and they were going to stone me.”

A shell-shocked Melanie was ushered to a holding area.

“There was a big tent for the stars and I was put in a little tent where there were people like me, Richie Havens and Tim Hardin,” she says.

Melanie spent hours waiting for her turn and the tension mounted.

“I felt like I was waiting to be executed,” she says.

Her sense of not belonging was heightened if she moved from the security of the tent.

“Every time I roamed too far from the tent the Hells’ Angels would pick me up and carry me back towards the crowd because they thought I should not be in the artistes’ area,” she says.

“I didn’t have a backstage pass. I never did get one, which is a pity because today I could sell it for a million dollars.”

Just when she thought that things couldn’t get worse, they did.

“I developed a horrible, deep, hacking, bronchial cough. It sounded like it came from the bowels of hell. Joan Baez, who was in the big tent, must have heard my coughing and she sent over a pot of hot tea. You can’t imagine how lovely that was.”

Then, just as Melanie had predicted, the rain started and she was delighted.

“I thought I had been reprieved because they would cancel the whole thing and I would be safe,” she says.

Rain was never going to stop Woodstock, though, and just before midnight Melanie went on stage.

“I remember taking this long walk, clutching my guitar. I was in such terror that I had an out-of-body experience. It was as though I was watching myself perform.”

The shy girl walked off stage a star. The hits followed and Melanie became a festival favourite, singing in the summer solstice at Glastonbury and getting four standing ovations after following The Who at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival.

She flew back from the Isle Of Wight to the USA with Jimi Hendrix.

“We had been talking on the plane, probably the only two hippies in first class, and he said he didn’t think I should go through customs with him because they usually gave him a hard time,” says Melanie.

She did accompany him, though, and Hendrix was right; Melanie was given a body search.

“One customs officer found my vegetarian survival kit, a container of dried fruit and nuts, and he looked at another and said, ‘What’s this?’ And he said: ‘Don’t you know, that’s what they eat!’ It was a very strange time.”

Melanie has mixed music with a family life. She was a would-be actress when she met and fell in love with record producer Peter Schekeryk, after going into the wrong office when she was auditioning for a theatre role.

Now they have two grown-up daughters, Leilah and Jeordie, and a 27-year-old son, Beau, who accompanies Melanie at her concerts.

Today she is as productive as ever, with a new album on the way and a one-woman stage show and in August she’ll return to Britain for a Woodstock celebration gig.

Whatever she tackles, all Melanie wants is to create some good vibrations. “My goal is to bring as much harmony and good feelings as possible; that is my life.”

Melanie is playing dates across the UK plus three nights at London’s Jazz Café on May 29, 30 and June 1. For tickets, call 08700 603 777 or visit www.seetickets.com

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