We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
It seems I’m drawn to singers with unique voices. Sure, I love pure singers like Linda Ronstadt and Freddie Mercury…but I’m always drawn back to the Dylans and the Prines and the Forberts and on and on. And so it goes for today’s selection. America’s flower child in charge…Melanie Safka….who’s 1971 LP ‘The Good Book” contained a bunch of signature performances.
Before you dismiss Melanie as a novelty singer who gave us “Brand New Key”…or a Woodstock refugee who got lucky with her first smash ‘Lay Down, Candles in the Rain”…listen to this record.
Yes, it has one of her “hits”, “The Nickel Song”…but also includes some tasty covers (she always had a knack for picking good material) including Dylan’s Sign On The Window from his LP “New Morning” which came out the previous year. She also does a Judy Collins song called “My Father” and a nice slowed down version of Phil Ochs disclaimer on fame, “Chords Of Fame”.
Her plaintive voice works well on much of this including the title cut and “The Saddest Thing’. She also does a song that she first did on stage at Woodstock “Birthday of the Sun”.
It was her last LP for Buddah but she released LPs through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Check out a really good live in studio record called Ballroom Streets from 1979.
She’s more than a novelty act…if you can get past the uniqueness of her voice.
