The family of American singer Melanie Safka said she died at the age of 76.
The folk singer died “peacefully” on Tuesday. She was known for her song “Brand New Key” and her cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”
It was also confirmed by her record company, Cleopatra Records, through Glass Onyon PR.
Melanie Jarred’s children, Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred, wrote on Facebook, “We are heartbroken, but want to thank each and every one of you for your love for our mother and to tell you that she loved all of you so much.”
“Everything she wrote and sang showed that she was one of the smartest, strongest, and most passionate women of her time.”
“Our world is much dimmer, the colours of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today, but we know that she is still here, smiling down on all of us, on all of you, from the stars.”
They asked her fans to light a candle. “Illuminate the darkness, and let us all be connected in remembrance of the extraordinary woman who was wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend to so very many people” .
Melanie was born on February 3, 1947, in New York.
She went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to study, but it was the folk clubs in Greenwich Village that made her want to become a singer.
Melanie grew up in Queens, but until she performed at Woodstock in 1969, not many people knew who she was.
That moment was also the inspiration for her first big hit, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain”).
The Wurzels’ hit song “Combine Harvester” was based on one of the singer’s songs.
Melanie had a big hit in 1971 called “Brand New Key.”
In 2021, she told the Guardian, “It was the bane of my existence for a few years.”
Melanie also played her first Glastonbury show in June 1971, and her most recent show was in 2011.
She played at the Isle of Wight Festival the year before.
Peter Schekeryk, her husband and manager whom she worked with, died in 2010.
Information about her funeral will be shared at the right time, and her family has asked that they be left alone.
