Woodstock Performer Melanie Safka Dead At 76

Singer Melanie Safka, who turned a 1969 performance at Woodstock into a hit song and a five-decade career, died Tuesday at the age of 76.

Safka’s death was announced on her Facebook page with a letter from her three children, Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred:

No cause of death was announced.

Earlier this month, Safka was in a recording studio working on “Second Hand Smoke,” an album of cover songs, for the Cleopatra label, Variety reported.

Born Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk in Astoria, New York, Safka studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before deciding to pursue a career as a folk singer.

Her big break came at the 1969 Woodstock concert, which she described to Rolling Stone in 2019 as her first “out-of-body experience.”

“I just left my body, going to a side, higher view. I watched myself walk onto the stage, sit down and sing a couple of lines. And when I felt it was safe, I came back.

“It started to rain right before I went on. Ravi Shankar had just finished up his performance, and the announcer said that if you lit candles, it would help to keep the rain away. By the time I finished my set, the whole hillside was a mass of little flickering lights. I guess that’s one of the reasons I came back to my body.”

“Lay Down (Candles In The Rain),” the song she wrote about the experience, hit No. 6 the next year. In 1971, she had a No. 1 hit with “Brand New Key.”

Although Safka’s star faded in the late 1970s, she used her fame to be aspokesperson for UNICEF.

After her husband, record producer Peter Schekeryk, died in 2010, she stopped recording as often, but frequently teamed with her children on live performances and internet concerts, as The Hollywood Reporter writes.

Safka’s kids asked fans to celebrate their