Melanie, R.I.P.

Above, Melanie Safka.

Sad news this morning. 

Melanie Safka, best known as Melanie, passed away on January 23 at age 76. The cause of her death has not been released. She was spotlighted on this blog in a Classic Rock Music Monday last year..

From NBC News:

Melanie, the singer who performed at Woodstock in 1969 and had major pop hits with “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” in the early ’70s, died Tuesday at age 76. News of the death came from her publicity firm, Glass Onyon PR.

No information on the cause of death was immediately given. But Melanie — full name Melanie Safka — had been in the studio earlier this month working on a new record of cover songs, “Second Hand Smoke,” for the Cleopatra label; it would have been her 32nd album, the label said.

Her three children, Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred, posted a message on Facebook, writing: “We are heartbroken, but want to thank each and every one of you for the affection you have for our Mother, and to tell you that she loved all of you so much! She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that. Our world is much dimmer, the colors 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.”

Her children asked that at 10 p.m. CT Wednesday, “each of you lights a candle in honor of Melanie. Raise, raise them high, high up again. 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.”

To read more, go here. 

Classic Rock Music Monday

The stuff that now passes as "music", particularly rock 'n roll, leaves me cold. So, to start off the week, here's a video of a classic rock artist.  

To start off this week, we have Canned Heat performing their 1968 hit, "On The Road Again". The band is still active, although only one band member from the 1960s remains.

From Wikipedia:

Canned Heat is an American blues and rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson's 1928 "Canned Heat Blues", a song about an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking Sterno, generically called "canned heat". After appearances at the Monterey and Woodstock festivals at the end of the 1960s, the band acquired worldwide fame with a lineup of Hite (vocals), Wilson (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Henry Vestine and later Harvey Mandel (lead guitar), Larry Taylor (bass), and Adolfo de la Parra (drums).

The music and attitude of Canned Heat attracted a large following and established the band as one of the popular acts of the hippie era. Canned Heat appeared at most major musical events at the end of the 1960s, performing blues standards along with their own material and occasionally indulging in lengthy "psychedelic" solos. Three of their songs — "Going Up the Country", "On the Road Again", and "Let's Work Together" — became international hits.

Since the early 1970s, following the early death of Wilson, numerous personnel changes have occurred. For much of the 1990s and 2000s and following Taylor's death in 2019, de la Parra has been the only member from the band's 1960s lineup. Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who played in later editions of the band.

Interestingly, Canned Heat released a live album, "Live At The Topanga Corral" in 1971. However, the album was not recorded at the Corral, but instead at Kaleidoscope in Hollywood. Before he passed away, I asked friend Wellington "Bill" Wilson, whose parents owned the Topanga Corral during the late 1960s, if he recalls Canned Heat ever performing there. He said he didn't.

Classic Rock Music Monday

The stuff that now passes as "music", particularly rock 'n roll, leaves me cold. So, to start off the week, here's a video of a classic rock artist.

To start off the week is a historic performance at the 1969 Woodstock rock festival of Santana with "Soul Sacrifice". The name of the group, founded in San Francisco, was for founder and lead guitarist Carlos Santana and the band blended rock 'n roll with a heavy Latin influence, known as "Latin rock". It has undergone many line-up changes over the years and has experimented with different sounds including jazz fusion. Happily, Carlos Santana is still going strong.

Classic Rock Music Monday

The stuff that now passes as "music", particularly rock 'n roll, leaves me cold. So, to start off the week, here's a video of a classic rock artist.'

Here's the Jefferson Airplane performing their hit "White Rabbit" at the Woodstock rock festival in August 1969. Incredibly, their performance ended up on the "cutting room floor" before the movie Woodstock was released in 1970. For those who only know Woodstock from the movie wouldn't even know the Jefferson Airplane were even there.

Classic Rock Music Monday

The stuff that now passes as "music", particularly rock 'n roll, leaves me cold. So, to start off the week, here's a video of a classic rock artist. 

Today, it will be Crosby, Stills and Nash at Woodstock (August 1969) performing "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." This was their second gig as a group, they said onstage.

A side note: I used to see David Crosby often during lunch time at Eddie Saul's Deli in Encino, California back in the mid-1980s.

Hendrix 70: Live At Woodstock

Hendrix 70: Live At Woodstock In Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's birth, for the first time ever see Jimi Hendrix's unforgettable August 1969 Woodstock concert in select cinemas globally. This special edition theatrical presentation, under the auspices of Experience Hendrix, L.L.C. has been carefully reassembled from the extensive archive of film footage helmed by Academy Award winning director Michael Wadleigh and his hand picked team of skilled camera operators and support personnel. Jimi premiered a new band and his extraordinary performance on that August morning included unforgettable renditions of such signature Hendrix songs as "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," "Fire," "Purple Haze" and "Foxey Lady" as well as his dramatic interpretation of the "Star Spangled Banner". Jimi's fascinating road to the Woodstock festival is revealed by way of never before seen footage and interviews with his band members such as Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell, engineer Eddie Kramer and Woodstock's promoter Michael Lang. Directed by Grammy Award winner Bob Smeaton [Beatles Anthology, Band Of Gypsys, Festival Express], the documentary, which precedes the performance footage, reveals the struggle to stage the legendary festival and secure Hendrix as its headline artist. Hendrix 70: Live from Woodstock will see a worldwide theatrical release by Omniverse Vision with select screenings from November 26. Visit JimiHendrix.com For Tickets »