From The Morning Call
The Morning Call - '60s icon Melanie brings multifaceted voice to Hippiefest'60s icon Melanie brings multifaceted voice to HippiefestBy Len Righi | Of The Morning Call
July 26, 2008
From the outset of her career in the 1960s, the public perception of Melanie has never quite jibed with her own self-image.
Where the world saw a sweet hippie chick folksinger with a powerful voice doing everything from gospel-fired peace anthems to twittery, possibly smutty nursery rhymes, Melanie's goal was to project a worldwise chanteuse.
''The press would always align me with bubblegum [performers],'' she says by phone from just outside Englewood, Colo., where she had performed the night before. ''Rolling Stone [magazine] would put me next to Bobby Sherman. On the other side there was Jimi Hendrix and the heavy people. If you didn't quite fit into that, you were bubblegum ? Of course, everything on Buddah [her label and home to The Ohio Express, The Lemon Pipers and The 1910 Fruitgum Company] was suspect.
''When I listen to my early records, I can hear me trying to be Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf in one and getting them both wrong,'' she adds with a laugh.
Melanie, born Melanie Anne Safka i n Astoria, Queens, is now 61 and the mother of three. Since she first drew national notice with the FM-radio hit ''Beautiful People,'' she has had a long, productive career that includes 27 albums, more than 25 million records sold worldwide and hits such as ''Look What They've Done To My Song,'' ''Brand New Key'' and ''Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).''
Further testament to her longevity: Melanie performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969 and at the 2007 Meltdown Festival in Britain organized by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker (she drew a sell-out crowd and earned glowing reviews).
Artists as diverse as Ray Charles, The New Seekers, Mott The Hoople, Bjork, Macy Gray, Dolly Parton and Cher have covered her songs. And there are online petitions to have her inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
On this day Melanie is headed to Dayton, Ohio, where she and other '60s icons, including Cream's Jack Bruce, The Animals' Eric Burdon and Flo & Eddie of The Turtles, will sing their best-known songs at the third and latest edition of Hippiefest (the tour stops Tuesday a t Philadelphia's Mann Center).
Although she has participated in all three Hippiefests, Melanie volunteers, ''I despise the name Hippiefest. If somebody said they were going to Hippiefest. I would go, 'Hmmm.' ? The name is kitsch and it's demeaning. It sounds like something you try on and then discard.''
All this is said with a measure of cheeriness. But it underscores another constant of Melanie's life -- her natural iconoclasm.
''I was the first weirdo in my high school,'' points out Melanie, who was raised in the Monmouth County, N.J., beach community of Elberon, a few miles north of Asbury Park. ''I was bohemian, they would call it now, in my way of dressing. I was going for a Renaissance look. My hair was straight. I went for long, flowing things. And boots.''
Her affection for Western footwear turned her into an unwitting rebel. ''In those days you couldn't buy a pair of boots if you were a girl,'' she says. ''But I traveled cross-country with my mother on a summer vacation and she stopped at Indian reservations along the way and I found these black suede Indian boots with fringe. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I wore them non-stop.
Including her first day at Long Branch High School. ''You cannot imagine what a fuss it caused,'' she says. ''I was taken to the principal's office. As a result, a policy was instituted banning boots as disruptive.''
In high school, Melanie also led ''a secret life. '' I would take the train into New York City and hang out in the Village for the weekend.''
While Bob Dylan, Jose Feliciano, Richie Havens and Judy Henski were making names for themselves in the Village's clubs, Melanie was singing on the street. ''I'd open my mouth and sing louder than anybody else and attract crowds. I never passed the hat, though, because I was too embarrassed.''
Soon people were calling her a folksinger. ''I didn't perceive myself as a folksinger,'' she says. '' Joan Baez was a folksinger to me. My voice didn't fit folk songs, the kind Joan Baez sang. [The label] hit me wrong, even though I looked like one. But I didn't know what else to call myself. There was no such thing as a singer-songwriter then.''
As for her Woodstock gig, when she heard that Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang were planning three days of peace, love and music, ''Naively I thought, 'I like the sound of that.' I pictured a couple of hundred kids out in the country having a picnic.''
After they promised her a spot on the bill, Melanie went to England to work on the film score of ''All the Right Noises'' and missed all the build-up. ''Nobody there knew it was going to be a major thing.''
So when Melanie returned to her mother's home in Elberon, she asked her to drive her to the festival. They battled heavy traffic, but finally made it to a hotel near Bethel, N.Y. The first thing she saw was Janis Joplin, surrounded by the press, swigging Southern Comfort from a bottle.
''Then I was told, 'OK, get in the helicopter.' So me and my mother started walking toward it, and were told, 'No, only performers and their managers are allowed on board.' So I said, ''Bye, Mom!'''
By the time she landed, ''I was thinking, 'Oh my God! What have I done? I'm not qualified for this.' The biggest crowd I had ever sung for was 500 at Temple University in Philadelphia. I kept thinking, 'Where's my piece of paper that says I'm qualified?'''
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