Melanie at 16
She was 22 at Woodstock in ’69 when she walked out on that stage in a soft drizzle, a complete unknown armed with only an acoustic guitar, and proceeded to make half a million people fall in love with her, myself included. Throughout the years, that love has deepened, her quirky albums became beloved, and her gigs legendary (like the time the electricity went off at a Rutgers gig and she sang her heart out with no mic, or her incendiary set at The Capitol Theater in Passaic on her birthday. “Anyone else celebrating a birthday tonight,” she impishly asked and I raised my hand. Her death last year at 76 came as a shock.
On January 2, Cleopatra Records continues its Melanie renaissance with the release of There Should Have Been A Rainbow. Recorded five years before her 1968 Born To Be debut, the 19 tracks were recorded in a New York City apartment starting in ’63 as a folk music boom was sprouting on college campuses and bohemian coffee houses across the country. Melanie had a particular affection for Protest Songs. She would go on to become a devotee of Baez, Dylan and San Francisco folkie stalwart Malvina Reynolds [1900-1978].
But she was also a rock’n’roll junkie and always was. Thus, her version of “Blowing In The Wind” sits side-by-side with “La Bamba.” Her version of Lefty Frizzell’s country classic, “Long Black Veil,” predates The Band’s 1968 version by three years. And “Barbara Allen,” written in 1840, shows this high school girl—Red Bank High in Monmouth County—striving to achieve a certain sense of traditionalism in a morbid song about a girl who spurns a boy’s love, then kills herself after he dies. “I Will Never Marry” dates back to 1671. “Geordie,” is even older. It’s from 1601. Melanie named her second daughter after that song. She covers “Puff The Magic Dragon,” a radio hit of the day by Peter, Paul & Mary, as well as “All My Trials,” from Bob Gibson’s 1956 Offbeat Folksongs album (although it dates back to Civil War times).
No, she hadn’t found her “voice” yet, but these recordings contain traces of what was to come.