Melanie, singer-songwriter of ‘Brand New Key,’ dies at 76

The singer known as Melanie, whose hits included “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” and “Brand New Key,” has died at 76.

Her children shared the news Wednesday in a post on the singer-songwriter’s official Facebook page. “Mom passed, peacefully, out of this world and into the next on Jan. 23,” the statement said.

Melanie Safka performed at Woodstock and won an Emmy Award for composing the lyrics to the theme song for the 1987-90 CBS series “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton.

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Her biggest hit, “Brand New Key” (1971), was an original composition sung in the character of a girl bragging of “a brand new pair of roller skates.” A No. 1 pop hit, it found new life as sort of a theme song for Rollergirl (Heather Graham) in Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed 1997 film “Boogie Nights.”

Melanie first charted in in 1970 with “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” a recounting of her experience performing at the massive Woodstock concert the summer earlier. It was a collaboration with the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

Other hits included “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”

“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,” Melanie’s children wrote. “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.”

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