Melanie - BBC In Concert, London, Britain, 7-14-1971

American folk singer Melanie Safka (better known as just "Melanie") passed away last week, as I write this near the end of January 2024. She was 76 years old.

I'm not that big of a Melanie fan, although I like some of her songs. But given that I've been working on a big BBC project for a few years now, I thought I would post a BBC album to mark her passing, if there was anything worth posting. Luckily, I found a short concert she did for BBC TV in 1971, which was around the peak of her popularity. 

About that time, the BBC had a TV show simply called "In Concert." (The BBC tends to call most of the live concerts they broadcast on the radio "In Concert," so things get confusing.) The show was only half an hour long. So that only makes up the first six songs here, for a total of 27 minutes.

I looked for BBC studio sessions, and I only found one. She did a session for BBC DJ John Peel in 1969. I decided to throw that session on at the end as quasi bonus tracks, even though that means a mix of live and studio tracks. One song was played on both occasions, "Tuning My Guitar." Actually, a second song was also played on both, "Beautiful People." However, I couldn't find the version from the 1969 Peel show.

As far as I know, everything here is officially unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. She played solo acoustic in both performances.

Melanie had three big hits in the years 1970 and 1971: "Brand New Key," "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain," and her version of the Rolling Stones song "Ruby Tuesday." In addition, a song she wrote, "What Have They Done to My Song Ma," wasn't a hit for her, but it was a big hit by the band the New Seekers, and it's been covered by many other artists. These two performances came before the release of "Brand New Key," so that's not here. Unfortunately, neither is "Lay Down" or "Ruby Tuesday," but this does include her version of "What Have They Done to My Song Ma."

This album is 40 minutes long. As mentioned above, the 1971 BBC concert is 27 minutes long. So the 1969 studio session is 13 minutes long.

01 Close to It All (Melanie)
02 Tuning My Guitar (Melanie)
03 The Nickel Song (Melanie)
04 Beautiful People (Melanie)
05 What Have They Done to My Song Ma (Melanie)
06 Peace Will Come [According to Plan] (Melanie)
07 Visit My Dreams (Melanie)
08 Uptown and Down (Melanie)
09 Baby Guitar (Melanie)
10 Tuning My Guitar (Melanie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16224529/MELNI1971_BBInCncrtLndnBrtin__7-14-1971_atse.zip.html

The cover is a screenshot from the 1971 BBC TV show that I found on YouTube. The text is done in the same style as the show. The colors from her name and the album are the example same as those on the show (orange and purple - not the best combination). I added in the red text part.