Melanie is set to sing in a brand new key
Monday, 30 April 2007
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Such is the dedication of Melanie to her audiences that she once defied a court injunction to play at a music festival through a sound system powered by a Mister Softee ice cream van.
The cult 1970s singer and queen of "flower power" ballads is unlikely to have her professionalism tested so rigorously when she picks up her acoustic guitar in June for her latest engagement - her first gig in Britain for 30 years.
The 60-year-old musician, whose other accomplishments include running a restaurant and writing a musical on Calamity Jane, is to participate in a pop celebration of the £111m refurbishment of London's South Bank complex. The full line-up for the Meltdown festival, directed by Jarvis Cocker, will be unveiled today.
Best known for her hits with "Ruby Tuesday", "Candles in the Rain" and "Brand New Key", Melanie will play alongside Motörhead and 80s goths The Jesus And Mary Chain in the week-long event, to mark the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall.
For many British fans, it will be a first sighting since her 1970s heyday, when she was a standard bearer for the hippy movement with her soulful tunes and peacenik doctrine. She plays the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 16 June.
Cocker, who is the latest in a succession of pop's senior statesmen to direct Meltdown in its 14-year history - others include John Peel, David Bowie and Morrissey - said the eclectic mix was an attempt to make audiences think.
The former Pulp singer said: "Culture should be a stimulant, not a sedative. Hide beneath the duvet in your plasma-screen, MP3-enabled pad if you like, but we will find you and we will wake you up.
"I am eternally grateful to all the artists who have agreed to contribute to this Meltdown. They are a disparate bunch but they have one thing in common: they will make you think."
Despite largely falling off the music radar in this country, Melanie remains hugely popular elsewhere and regularly plays to large audiences in her native America, Germany, the Netherlands and South Korea. She has sold 80 million records in her career, putting her on a par with Dolly Parton and not far behind Bob Dylan.
She was also the first solo pop artist to play the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House and the general assembly of the United Nations, receiving a standing ovation from the ranks of diplomats.
The artist, whose full name is Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk, gained renown for her ardent adherence to the peace and love values of the late 1960s and early 1970s. She played at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight Festival in 1971 and serenaded the dawn at the Glastonbury Fayre in the second year of what became the Glastonbury Festival.
Such was her dedication that in the summer of 1970 she decided to play before 30,000 people at the Power Ridge Festival in Connecticut, which was "cancelled" after a judge granted an injunction following complaints that drugs were so widely available that someone had doctored the water supply with LSD.
Melanie, who was booked before the injunction, smuggled herself into the venue in a television van while organisers approached the crew of an ice-cream van to provide the amplification because all power had been cut.
"The Mister Softee people [had] the only electricity of any kind that had gotten in. So they hooked up a makeshift sound system to a Mr Softee generator. One microphone," she recalled.
Although she is playing the Queen Elizabeth II Hall next door, Melanie should have no such problems with the acoustics in the new Festival Hall, once notorious for the sound-deadening linings of the auditorium which perturbed generations of performers. Meltdown, which was cancelled last year to allow for the 18-month refurbishment, will be the venue's first contemporary music event since reopening.
The £91m refurbishment, together with a £20m make-over of the surrounding Southbank facilities, has concentrated on tweaking the acoustic performance for maximum effect.
Its success will be tested when Motörhead play the hall, opened in 1951 with a 3,000-seat capacity, at the same time as Melanie's appearance next door.
