Infinity Hall

It's almost time for Melanie to make musical history again...

For three years Melanie, who became the voice of an era in one magical instant onstage at Woodstock, has been putting the pieces in order.

Pieces of a career, scattered by the winds of experience and assembled again by the force of love into the most personal and brilliant of Melanie’s many personal and brilliant albums.

Recorded in collaboration with Beau Jarred Schekeryk, Melanie's son and a guitarist/producer with a formidable future of his own, and scheduled for mid-September release, this new album, which remains untitled, takes root in the history Melanie has already made but rises through the light of modern times toward something universal and enduring.

It’s all here, the irony and compassion, the wrenching emotion, biting humor, the rushing romanticism of the unexpected insights derived from Melanie’s interpretation of the album's one stunning, unforgettable voice which brings each of these new songs to life. This New Album is something greater than a comeback effort -- after all, Melanie never really left (see below for Melanie’s history).

No, this album is a kind of rebirth -- an ignition of the creative energies with which Melanie had first conquered the musical world. As its mid-April release nears, so does the return of an artist who has already had a unique and unforgettable impact on music then and now -- who, in fact, was a prototype for the singer/songwriter concept that we've come to assume was always with us. Melanie never stopped world wide tours and with new tour dates being booked, Melanie is poised and enlightens new generations about what it means to sing with both passion and eloquence, to write at once with intelligence and emotion, and to inspire through song....and nobody does this better than Melanie.

Others learned this from Melanie that night at Woodstock, where as a New York kid barely known outside of the coffeehouse circuit in Greenwich Village, she sang her song "Beautiful People" and inspired the first panorama of candles and cigarette lighters ever raised at a concert event. That, in turn, moved the young singer to write "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain"), which sold more than one million copies in 1970 and prompted Billboard, Cashbox, Melody Maker, Record World, and Bravo to anoint her as female vocalist of the year. Her single "Brand New Key," an infectious romp about freedom and roller skates, topped the charts in 1971.

And so her story began. With guitar in hand and a talent that combined amazing vocal equipment, disarming humor, and a vibrant engagement with life, she was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear from the Royal Albert Hall to Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and later opened the New Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, where see was invited to perform on many occasions as delegates greeted her performances with standing ovations. Melanie became spokesperson for UNICEF after accepting the position she canceled her 18-month US tour and returned all deposits and monies colleted. At the peak of her career Melanie left to peruse her humanitarian efforts as spokesperson for UNICEF. Melanie continues to support humanitarian efforts and proceed to perform her peace songs even when it wasn’t fashionable. Melanie stands on her foundation of ethics by not selling herself to product driven America. For example Melanie was asked many times to use her voice for commercials. Melanie chose to only endorse humanitarian commercials so commercial companies who wanted Melanie’s voice tried to use voices as close as they could to Melanie’s and Melanie continues to be congratulated time and time again for many commercials that she didn’t do. Thanks to Melanie's unique voice, even these commercial jingle singers evolved into main stream artists if we listen close we will know who they are.

The top television hosts of the time -- Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and Dick Cavett -- battled to book her. (After her stunning performance on his show, Sullivan goggled that he had not seen such a "dedicated and responsive audience since Elvis Presley.")

Accolades rolled in, from critics ("Melanie's cult has long been famous, but it's a cult that's responding to something genuine and powerful -- which is maybe another way of saying that this writer counts himself as part of the cult too," wrote John Rockwell in The New York Times) as well as peers ("Melanie," insisted jazz piano virtuoso Roger Kellaway, "is extraordinary to the point that she could be sitting in front of us in this room and sing something like 'Momma Momma' right to us, and it would just go right through your entire being.")

In the years that followed Melanie continued to record, continued to tour. UNICEF made her its spokesperson; Jimi Hendrix's father introduced her to the multitude assembled for the twentieth anniversary of Woodstock. Her records continued to sell -- more than eighty million to date. She's had her songs covered by singers as diverse as Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray. She's raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant, written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane ...

She has, in short, lived a rare life. But all of it was just a prelude to what's about to come.

"It took my lifetime to create this album," Melanie’s said today. "For the first time, I'm not afraid to voice exactly what I feel. I used to feel that I didn't want to say too much, but now I can say anything.

Melanie was inspired with her son, beau jarred working on her new album with her husband peter schekeryk..

"It took my lifetime to create this album," Melanie’s said today. "For the first time, I'm not afraid to voice exactly what I feel. I used to feel that I didn't want to say too much, but now I can say anything. Beau's ideas helped me understand this: They're so amazing, so off-the-wall, and yet there's something ancient about them. Honestly, he didn't come up with one thing that I didn't totally love."

Once the dust settles in the production room, this new album will stand immutably complete. "I didn't sense a conscious message to this album," Melanie admits, "but when I looked at what we have done and listen to the lyrics, I see that this album has a flow that none of my other albums had. Over the course of my career, I would always record a song at a time; this was the first time that it came out in a flowing style that is heart wrenching and full of emotion. There isn't a single break; it just keeps flowing. These songs are just perfect. And every one of them also fulfilled itself on its own."

Longtime fans will sense this immediately. There's something new in this album-- a line of feeling and meaning that threads through every moment of the music. Whether actual occurrences or poetic flights conjured in Melanie’s imagination. The lessons of life mark the starting point for each song, which then broadens them in ways that allow each of us to find our own connection. It is, in this sense, classic composition, immaculately crafted yet as irresistible as a first love or forgotten heartache.

"I feel like a person who's never been heard," Melanie declares. "Maybe people think they've heard me, but they never really have. I'm a new artist who is having so much fun with my voice -- a person shouldn't be allowed to have so much fun. I'm the woman I wanted to be when I was sixteen and going for Edith Piaf. It's me -- I'm back."

Meet Melanie again -- for the very first time.

Video:
Website:

Ticket Price: $30, $40