Melanie - Is she the only person from WOODSTOCK 69 still alive?

Her version of Mr. Tambourine Man is amazing.

Joni Mitchell

Surprisingly, Sly Stone is still alive.

Great song.

R3 OMFG I forgot about him!!! Idk how, I love Sly and the Family Stone lol.

Love that DIVERSE groundbreaking group

Carlos Santana is still with us

Joni skipped Woodstock.

Joni wasn't at Woodstock, r2.

Brilliant minds, r7......

I love this Sly Stone song. Catchy beat and very honest. You don't hear songs like this anymore.

Joan Baez, Carlos Santana, John Fogerty, Sly Stone, shall I continue?

Half of the Who is still touring.

Melanie has a lot of great songs.

Joan Baez is on her farewell tour.

Isn't she a nutty libertarian now?

Yeah, Melanie is a Libertarian.

Arlo Guthrie and John Sebastian are still alive.

Joan Baez was super pitchy singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at Woodstock but it was amazing still.

Grace Slick, Country Joe McDonald, Neil Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, guitarist Leslie West, from Blood Sweat & Tears: David Clayton-Thomas, Steve Katz, Jim Fielder, Jerry Weiss, etc.

Sha NA NA still alive haha.

Melanie did a duet performance with Miley Cyrus

Woodstock 69? WTF is that? Next you'll be calling it Cis-Woodstock.

It's Woodstock.

Period.

Cyndi Lauper would have been Melanie in 1969

r21 hate to break it to you but there were other Woodstocks after...

R2 Joni Mitchell didn't even go to Woodstock because she was too scared she would miss her Dick Cavett appearance the next day. Joni felt it was more important to make a media appearance than actually attend a historical cultural phenomenon.

Yet Grace Slick (who is still alive OP) and the rest of Jefferson Airplane and Crosby and Stills managed to make it because they weren't complete cunts more worried about their precious PR than participating in the landmark event.

The Incredible String Band

Her most famous song

[quote] hate to break it to you but there were other Woodstocks after...

That doesn't matter. You add a suffix to them, not to the original.

This might be her second most famous song - only because Brand New Key and this one are the only two I could remember about her.

Woodstock is titled "Woodstock '69" with todays youth

Pete Townshend

Roger Daltrey

Grace Slick

Arlo Guthrey

Bowser

Bob Weir

Joan Baez

Carlos Santana

John Sebastian

John Fogerty

Sly Sylvester

David Crosby

Graham Nash

Stephen Stills

Neil Young

[quote] Woodstock is titled "Woodstock '69" with todays youth

You're not helping your argument any.

Oops I accidentally deleted Sylvester Stone's last name

Joni Mitchell did not know it would be a major cultural event. People hoped it would, but none were sure.

No one knew it would be what it became. It could have came and went quietly but that wasn't the case...

But she appropriated it for a song. Joni was like that.

Melanie released a pop album in 1985 and it was actually quite good! I loved the song "Private Parts"

This is from one of her later albums but one I really liked.

Melanie was quite an unusual talent. She wrote quirky songs and sang them in a quavering, yet forceful, voice of hers. She did great cover versions, too. I love her version of Jim Croce's "Lover's Cross" and the Rolling Stone's "Ruby Tuesday."

R36 Funny that we both posted the same obscure melanie song at almost the exact same time.

R37 great minds think alike

Why even honour such OP's with their ignorant trolling deadpan openers. One little google would have answered his own pointless question.

People don't know how to start threads so they pull trolls out of their ass and everyone FEEDS the troll.

r41 I actually thought she was the last one. I forgot all about Joan Baez and Santana and Sly Stone etc.

Geez.

Melanie may have written "Look What They've Done To My Song Ma" but The New Seekers had a bigger hit with it, their first hit, and it was definitely the better version. I remember buying it.

This is my favorite song performed at Woodstock '69

Melanie Safka today. She's 72.

Melanie back in the day.

R44 Would you believe that I was looking at this reissued album of Joe Cocker's today in a music store?

r47 get it! Im a big fan of his music! Janis Joplin also!!!

Melanie sounds like Marlene Dietrich with a hangover.

R48 Gone but not forgotten. Joe Cocker died in 2014 at 70 years of age.

She sounds a bit like a Stevie Nicks on helium.

Stephen Stills was at Woodstock, Altamont and Monterrey Pop. AFAIK, he's the only musician to have appeared at all three.

[quote]Yet Grace Slick (who is still alive OP) and the rest of Jefferson Airplane and Crosby and Stills managed to make it because they weren't complete cunts more worried about their precious PR than participating in the landmark event.

No one knew Woodstock was going to be some landmark event.

Two weeks before Woodstock there was the Atlantic City Pop Festival.

No one has ever heard of it....but just look at this line-up.

I wish I loved anything as much as Vic Chesnutt loved Melanie in this clip.

Melanie was interesting

My aunt was in the crowd (she still has her original ticket), she was a hippie child and she was 18 in 1969....does she count?

Carlos Santana is still alive.

R52 Grace Slick!!!!

I think Woodstock might be overrated?

People who say Woodstock was overrated were definitely not there.

Joni Mitchell wasn't the only one to make the mistake of turning down Woodstock.

Allegedly, the Beatles declined because the promoters wouldn't give Yoko Ono a slot to perform as well.

I guess we still have to take Paul and Ringo at their word Yoko had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the Beatles eventual break up.

I forgot my link for the above post. Sorry, people.

R54 Strange little man. I miss him.

"Funny that we both posted the same obscure melanie song at almost the exact same time."

Only on Datalounge, kids. Only on Datalounge.

I LOVE Melanie OP. Always have

It was on TCM the other night. Hands down, the best performance is Santana's "Soul Sacrifice", followed closely by Sly and the Family Stone's medley and Ten Years After "I'm Going Home"

She was 22 when she did Woodstock OP.

r61, the Beatles likely turned down Woodstock because they were on the verge of breaking up during the summer of 1969.

John Lennon may very well have turned down Woodstock for the Yoko Ono reason, he did the same to George's concert for Bangladesh a few years later for the same reason.

"She sounds a bit like a Stevie Nicks on helium."

She doesn't sound like Stevie Nicks. Melanie had a more expressive voice than Nicks. Her voice had more power and range, too. And she wrote all her songs WITHOUT getting help from more talented male musicians, like Nicks has always done.

It was nice to remember her fondly with this thread. I don't feel like listening to her again but I enjoyed her kooky sound when I was a tot.

We once 'enjoyed' a massive sizemeat who claimed to have been her first husband.

[quote]She sounds a bit like a Stevie Nicks on helium.

More like Steve Nicks sounds like Stevie Nicks on helium. What an overrated 'singer'!

I adored Melanie's music but almost as much as the song I enjoyed this video of a 1970 Dutch television appearance she did. It's a great performance but also you get to see the confused faces of the middle aged audience of WW2 survivors who didn't know what they hell they were watching but being polite anyway.

It's a shame Sonny & Cher didn't perform at Woodstock.

Melanie's 'Lay Down/Candles in the Rain' was a huge hit and a powerful song in March 1970.

Melanie wrote the song after performing at Woodstock in August 1969; the song's lyrics describe what she felt as she looked out at the sea of people attending the music event.

After Brand New Key Melanie was considered something of a novelty act. Her period at the top was fairly brief. By the end of the 70s she was completely forgotten.

Ugh, Woodstock. I'll take Company and Follies, please.

I'm disturbed by the length of her caftan in OP's video. It doesn't fall within DL's hem guidelines and I'm shocked to see such a thing go unchallenged here.

I’m a Millennial and I like her records.The instrumentation is basic, sure, and she’s straightforward but she really means it. I love her strident voice and strumming.

‘Arrow’ is my favorite song of hers. It describes a relationship I sort-of had...

Never cared for her. Quirky in the wrong way.

"Quirky in the wrong way."

Is there a right way?

I love that she’s still pickin’ and singin’ in her ‘70s. She’s folk to the bone but she goes about it with a blues sensibility that I really respect. I hope she plays long as she lives.

I love her. She seems very humble.

It's not "Woodstock 69." It's just "Woodstock." Did Sylvia and Marsha take their bricks to Yasgur's farm, too?

A bunch of performers from Woodstock are still alive.

I get the Stevie Nicks comparison, they both have that natural uncontrollable vibrato and just go with it. Very few women singers choose this style.

Woodstock 69 was the best

[quote]Woodstock 69 was the best

It's just Woodstock.

It’s Woodstock 69 to Millennials.

This PBS Woodstock doc might be interesting.

She was very popular, but after Brand New Key she sort of got slotted as a novelty act.

I still sing “I Don’t Eat Animals”.

Although I do eat them.

Back in 1974 I had just turned 12.

My friend's father was a Melanie fan and most days that I went over there he was blasting music, Melanie being primary. I got hooked fast.

When I turned 17 Melanie was playing a small venue near me, but you had to be 18 to get in. I didn't get in.

But outside the building, outside there were direct windows to the left-rear side of the stage and I could here everything. I stood there for the whole concert, and mid-way, Melanie saw me in the window and said something like, Why are you standing out there, why don't you come inside? She was looking at me, right in the eye. All I remember is the shock that Melanie was looking at me and talking to me.

I received a copy of this - the entire festival on CD. It's a bit TOO much but still I get a good vibe every summer when I listen to a Woodstock record or watch a bit of the movie. Which has also received big new edits in recent years. Woodstock sends out good vibrations, even now.

After the huge success of "Brand New Key", she had a couple of minor hits like "Ring The Living Bell" and "The Nickel Song", but I don't remember hearing much from her after that.

It must be tough to be so linked with one song. Elton John could skip half of his No. 1 songs in concert, and no one would notice. But if Melanie didn't do Brand New Key, people would feel cheated.

Love her, always have.

I think of Beautiful People before Brand New Key!

There it is, right there at r97. Beautiful People. A perfect song.

I love this one

Let's consider "Together Alone." Damn I wish I could link. She does a signature soft intro to a rousing full voice that is captivating.

R98 and I knew it was perfect even as a little boy and my tastes ran more to classic rock n roll.

Nowadays people can hardly even listen to a something so simple and pleasant voice like that.

Did she get a check for this?

The first song that comes to my mind with her isn’t even her song. It’s a cover.

I love her singing “Mr Tambourine Man”.

I love her. Her voice is unique

[quote]Half of the Who is still touring.

Keith Moon, the only one with talent and any sort of marginal good looks is dead. LONG DEAD. Get over it.

[quote]Her voice is unique

That means sucky

[quote]Sha NA NA still alive haha

I was thinking the same thing, I think only one member of the original lineup at Woodstock has died. They were a kind of Americanized version of the UK Teddy Boys, the anti-hippie proto-punks who worshiped 50s American rockers and hated 60s movies. They used to shout something like "listen here you fucking hippies, rock and roll is king!" in their concerts and I've always wondered if they did that at Woodstock. Must have messed with people's heads.

I sing “I Don’t Eat Animals” frequently, in my kitchen. I especially love “white sugar makes you rot”.

Unfortunately, the song doesn’t prevent me from eating animals or white sugar, but it helps me not do it as often.

Grace Slick (still very much alive) could eat Melanie for lunch.

Janis, go back to your grave you druggie bitch!

[quote]Nowadays people can hardly even listen to a something so simple and pleasant voice like that.

What are you talking about? Folk and Americana music are HUGE right now, and have been for the last decade.

I saw her at Westbury Music Fair on March 17th, 1972, first show. It's quite an intimate venue with a circular stage that rotates counter clockwise. That threw her off, I think.

That duet with Miley Cyrus at R20 was excellent, thank you for sharing! Had no idea Miley Cyrus could sing that well, and Melanie still sounds good!

Miley can sing well when she actually wants to. Otherwise she just does what she’s known for.

She had that "hippie" voice (and look) that was perfect for that era.

[quote] Joni Mitchell didn't even go to Woodstock because she was too scared she would miss her Dick Cavett appearance the next day. Joni felt it was more important to make a media appearance than actually attend a historical cultural phenomenon.

no.

joni's manager was very emphatic that she NOT go. she wanted to but her manager was insistent.

also, no one knew it was going to be anything other than a big outdoor concert

we assigned it great importance (more than it probably ever deserved) after the fact

I can’t stand Melanie’s voice.