A clipping from the April 3, 1964 Red Bank Register. (Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Maybe it was dumb luck. Or maybe the photographer sensed something special about the Red Bank High School senior playing guitar in a bank’s parking lot.
This week 60 years ago, a photographer for the now-defunct Red Bank Register newspaper captured Melanie Safka playing guitar at festival commemorating the 300th anniversary of the founding of Little Silver.
Young Melanie in performance, above, and below visiting Red Bank Regional High School in 2015. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge.)
With spring in bloom, the girl in the photo was likely excited at the looming prospect of graduation. Safka would years later describe her experience at RBHA as “miserable.” The article accompanying the photograph recounts a line of lyrics she sang that day: “I’m living a life but really I’m dying instead.”
Not for long.
Fast forward five years and the singer known simply as “Melanie” would take the world by storm with a riveting performance at a little music festival called Woodstock.
Two years after that, her song “Brand New Key” would hit number one on the Billboard music charts, and Melanie would become the first female performer to have three top 40 hits at the same time.
She would have a number of other hits in the United States and abroad, including “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” inspired by her experience playing at Woodstock.
She would go on to a long successful career. And she would eventually come to terms with her high school experience, returning to the school’s successor, Red Bank Regional, to accept induction into its alumni hall of fame in 2015.
Safka died in January at age 76.
Watching videos showing Melanie’s mesmerizing talent, (including this one from 2015 with Miley Cyrus), one has to wonder: did the photographer on that day in 1964 sense something about her?
Or were they just trying to grab a quick photo on deadline to satisfy a cranky editor in a smoke filled newsroom back on Broad Street? Regardless, anything that sends us down the Melanie Spotify listening rabbit hold six decades later is worth it.
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