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Folk icon Melanie will play the Beachland Ballroom April 16.

(Maddy Miller)

PREVIEW

Melanie

When:

8 p.m. Saturday, April 16. (Doors at 7.) Alex Bevan opens.

Where:

Beachland Ballroom, 15711 Waterloo Road, Cleveland.

Tickets:

$35-$60; go to

or call 216-383-1124.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Melanie Safka Schekeryk is the 1960s folk icon better known simply as Melanie. She is often grouped with her contemporaries, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. Her appearance at Woodstock inspired her most famous hit single, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)."

She began her musical career playing the folk clubs in Greenwich Village. She recorded for Columbia and Buddah Records before forming her own label in 1971 with her late husband and record producer, Peter Schekeryk. Her last album, "1984," which came out in 2015, was a live recording. She is currently working on a new album. She spoke with Michael Heaton.

Q. What does it mean to you to be a girl from Queens?

A. Well, it makes me a native New Yorker. I think of me, Melanie, sitting on the stoop learning my first chords on the ukulele from the block with all of its implications.

I learned to roller skate on the cracked, uneven sidewalks of Astoria, Queens, to ride a bicycle on those same streets. In this long life on the road, I've been all around the world. New York has always come with me.

Q. What's your favorite backstage memory at Woodstock?

A. There wasn't a backstage. It was a small tent with a dirt floor and a box. As I recall, I realized there was an upper-echelon tent with amenities, because Joan Baez, my idol, sent over a pot of tea. She heard the loud, demonic, nervous coughing I'd developed over the eternal period of time I waited to go on. I was much too much of an introvert to even think of approaching that big tent.

Joan Baez sending over that tea was my backstage Woodstock moment. The other moment of course is history.

The lighting of the candles as I was going onstage. The field seeming to come alive with a flow of connectedness and humanity. During my set, I resonated with 500,000 people. It was quite a powerful experience. A girl alone with the guitar never having sung for more than 500 people, ever.

The phenomenon of me at Woodstock is that I walked on the stage an unknown person and walked off a celebrity. I had the chorus of "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" in my head as I left the field. And I would never perceive the world the same again.

Q. How do you keep the hit songs fresh in performance?

A. This is an interesting question and one that fascinates me. I believe it has something to do with my acting training, and being in the moment. It's a new moment, and a new creation in front of new people. It is as if I am there for the first time. Sometimes one of the hits . . . turns out to be my favorite performance of the night. That's no small feat when you've been performing for nearly 50 years, right?

Of course I love doing my new songs, the ones from [her 2010 album] "Ever Since You Never Heard of Me". . . But I know there are people in the audience who came to hear that one [hit] song.

There was a time I became almost a reactionary against "Brand New Key," as it was the song that doomed me to be cute for the rest of my life. So all those years ago in front of stadiums of people, if I was in a "want to please" mood, I might do the song twice. If I was feeling feisty, I might not do it at all. Because as I moved from small, intimate rooms to larger venues, people in the audience were not necessarily the ones I would invite to my shows.

Now, somehow, it's all new again. I feel like I love that song.

Q. Are any of your kids in the music biz?

A. I wanted my children to be in academics or veterinarians, florists, anything but in the music business. They were born singing, all three of them. When we sing together we are quite the choir.

Beau Jarred tours with me and has since he was 16. He's a concert guitarist who has played solo all over the world. And he accompanies me. He is the band. Playing other instruments as well: the guitar, viola, assorted pennywhistles and bass. We toured quite a while with [her late husband] Peter. Beau Jarred and I, it was pretty funny, looking back, like the "I Love Lucy Show." Peter was Ricky Ricardo, I was Lucy, and Beau was Little Ricky.

Now, it's Beau Jarred and I, kind of joined at the hip.

We are writing a new album and working on finishing up an EP, complete except for the artwork. Both my daughters sing and play out. Leilah is a writer in Nashville. Jeordie became a cowgirl and lives in Arizona writing songs and playing out nearly every night. Not a veterinarian amongst them.

Vegetarians, yes. I guess I had some influence.

Q. Wasn't it pretty radical when you and your late husband formed your own label back in 1971?

A. In 1971, Peter and I established our own record label, Neighborhood Records.

My motivation was that I had been so typecast by my former label as a beatific, blissed-out ninny. Peter's motivation was the subject of another story.

Irony of ironies: Our first hit? "Brand New Key." Go figure.

I suppose it was pretty revolutionary. The Beatles were the only other group that had their own label, Apple. It was a way of having more creative control. The industry was becoming more and more corporate. It was the beginning of music and record labels being run by lawyers. I was determined to keep my artistic integrity. Our attempts were, to say the least, sabotaged.

I continually wrote songs against that sort of corporate control of music. Like "The Nickel Song" says, "They're only putting in a nickel and they want a dollar song," or "Look what they done to my song, Ma / Well, they tied it up in a plastic bag."

There were factions determined to keep me in my place. Aiming at independence and not playing the game proved an expensive decision, but one I do not regret.

Q. Bernie or Hillary?

A. I don't trust politics. I vote. That is as political as I get.

My distrust is based how politics works, and what I have seen even in my small world over the years.

I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone, or begin to pontificate about the virtues or shortcomings of any specific candidate.

This [2016] political race seems to me more of a circus than anything else. But I suppose we vote, until the real thing comes along. I am hopeful; people seem to be awakening. I myself now have more and more kids coming to my shows. Young ones. Born-again hippies, etc.

People questing and querying; that's always a good sign.