SARATOGA SPRINGS - Her songs have been covered by everyone from Ray Charles (“Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma”) and Mott The Hoople (“Lay Down: Candles In The Rain“) to the Dollyrots (“Brand New Key”), and her rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” is arguably the only time anyone has out-muscled The World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band on their own turf.
Melanie – who alongside other iconic music-makers like Cher, Beyonce and Adele is quintessentially illuminative to be able to get by on a first-name-only basis – will perform two shows at Caffe Lena on Aug. 2.
Her discography counts dozens of releases and spans several decades, but perhaps is most notable for a song she wrote after her appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, capturing the mood of the moment and providing a theme for a generation. Getting to play on the bill at Woodstock seemed simple enough.
“It sounded like camping for three days out in the country, so I asked the promoters, 'Can I do it?’” Melanie recalled, during an interview with this reporter when she visited Saratoga Springs to perform at Caffe Lena a few years ago. “They said: Sure, kid.” She was 22 years old at the time and as showtime grew near, the reality of performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people brought with it a dose of anxiety.
“I thought, 'Oh my god, there's Janis Joplin. I could hear Richie (Havens) singing: Freedom...Freedom...Freedom... It was scary. I'm just a girl with a guitar, they're never going to put me on that stage,” she said. “I started getting this real deep bronchial cough. Joan Baez heard me coughing and she sent an assistant over with a pot of hot tea. It was like nectar of the Gods.”
Shortly after Ravi Shankar performed, the sky threatened rain. “People from the Hog Farm, or some other group were saying some inspirational things about lighting candles to keep the rain away,” she recalled.
As the candles began to flicker, Melanie was told it was her turn to take the stage.
“I had to walk the plank and I watched the hillside completely lit up with candles, like the flickering millions… I had an out of body experience.” A few days later, she put the experience to song. “I started thinking about it, about what literally was right in front of me.”
A year later the song she’d written about the experience - “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” - was being played on radio stations across the country. It sold more than 1 million copies, showcased the singer with the childlike, yet other-worldly voice, blessed with reams of slicing vibrato, and began a longstanding concert tradition of audiences striking matches and thumbing lighters and holding the flame aloft in music halls across the world.
Melanie’s Woodstock moment spawned a music career with sprinkled with high points – she was introduced to a crowd of 600,000 at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival by Keith Moon after she took the stage immediately after The Who – and strung together a number of hits through the 1970s. More than 80 million copies of her records have been sold to date, she's had her songs covered by singers as diverse as Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray.
Melanie performs at Caffe Lena Thursday Aug. 2. Shows at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $45 general admission. $40 café members, $22.50 students and kids.
