Melanie to perform today in New Haven

Woodstock-era singer part of East Rock Concert Series

NEW HAVEN — If you’re of the Woodstock generation, you probably don’t need to ask ‘Melanie who?’

But even if you don’t know Melanie Safka Schekeryk by just her first name, chances are that a very short list of her songs — “Brand New Key,” “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” “Beautiful People,” “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” — will immediately ring a bell.

But what is she up to now?

Find out tonight, when Melanie — now 71 and a widowed mother of three — performs, accompanied by her son, BeauJarred, at Fernando Pinto’s East Rock Concert Series at the mActivity Coffee Bar at 285 Nicoll St.

Showtime is 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 in advance, available at melanie.brownpapertickets.com, or $45 at the door.

Melanie first attracted national attention when she stepped onstage at Woodstock — just between Ravi Shankar and Arlo Guthrie — on Aug. 15, 1969. Just 22 at the time, she was one of just three women to perform solo at Woodstock. Her first big hit song, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” was written about Woodstock.

Born and raised initially in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City, Melanie’s father, Fred, was an ethnic Ukrainian and her jazz singer mother, Pauline “Polly” Altomare Safka-Bertolo, was of Italian descent.

Melanie graduated from Red Bank (N.J.) High School in 1964 and started out her professional music career performing at The Inkwell, a coffee house in the West End section of Long Branch, New Jersey, also studying acting at the American

Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Of particular interest here in Connecticut, Melanie was one of the artists scheduled to perform at the ill-fated Powder Ridge Rock Festival in Middlefield — and was the only scheduled artist who actually showed up and performed, despite a court injunction banning the festival.

According to various accounts, she performed for the people who also showed up on a makeshift stage powered by Mister Softee trucks.

Contributed photo Woodstock-era folk and pop singer Melanie will perform at Fernando Pinto’s East Rock Concert Series at the mActivity Coffee Bar in New Haven.