[1][2] Melanie is widely known for the 1971–72 global hit "Brand New Key", her 1970 version of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday", her composition "What Have They Done to My Song Ma", and her 1970 international breakthrough hit "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)", which was inspired by her experience of performing at the 1969 Woodstock music festival.

Her father, Frederick M. Safka (1924–2009), was of Russian–Ukrainian ancestry,[5][6] and her mother, jazz singer Pauline "Polly" Altomare (1926–2003), was of Italian heritage.

[6][7] Melanie made her first public singing appearance at age four on the radio show Live Like A Millionaire, performing the song "Gimme a Little Kiss".

[9] In the 1960s, Melanie started performing at The Inkwell, a coffee house in the West End section of Long Branch.

After high school, her parents insisted that she attend college, so she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

[11] Melanie released two singles on the label in the U.S. She subsequently signed with Buddah Records and found her first chart success in Europe in 1969 with "Bobo's Party", which reached No.

Her debut album received positive reviews from Billboard, which described her voice as "wise beyond her years" and said her "non-conformist approach to the selections on this LP make her a new talent to be reckoned with".

[17] In 1970, Melanie was the only artist to ignore a court injunction banning the Powder Ridge Rock Festival, which was scheduled to be held on July 31, August 1 and 2, 1970.

Not long after this performance, she played at the Strawberry Fields Festival held from August 7 to 9, 1970, at Mosport Park in Ontario, Canada.

Melanie acknowledged the possibility of reading an unintended sexual innuendo in the song, stating: I wrote ['Brand New Key'] in about fifteen minutes one night.

When she became an official UNICEF ambassador in 1972, she agreed to forgo a world tour in favor of raising money for the organization.

Also in 1976, Melanie appeared at the tribute concert for Phil Ochs, who had died by suicide on April 9 that year.

Held on May 28 at New York City's Felt Forum, Melanie performed an emotional version of Ochs's songs "Chords of Fame" and "Miranda".

[32] She had appeared with Ochs on stage in 1974 at his "Evening with Salvador Allende" concert (also held at the Felt Forum), along with Dave Van Ronk, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and others.

Though never fully produced, several staged readings were performed at the Lincoln Center, with Melanie as the narrator and pop singer and actress Annie Golden as Oakley.

[34] Melanie won an Emmy Award for writing the lyrics to the theme song for the television series Beauty and the Beast.

[37] One of Melanie's later albums, Paled By Dimmer Light (2004), was co-produced by Peter and Beau-Jarred Schekeryk and includes the songs "To Be The One", "Extraordinary", "Make It Work", and "I Tried To Die Young".

Her sold-out performance was critically acclaimed, with The Independent saying, "It was hard to disagree that Melanie has earned her place alongside Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Nico, and Marianne Faithfull in the pantheon of iconic female singers.

She recorded "Psychotherapy", sung to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", which parodied aspects of Freudian psychoanalysis.

[40] In October 2012, Melanie collaborated with John Haldoupis, artistic and managing director of Blackfriars Theatre in Rochester, New York, to create an original musical about her love story with her late husband.

[41] In April 2015, Melanie was inducted into Red Bank Regional's "Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame".