Melanie Safka [I bet she went by her first name because she got tired of hearing ‘that rhymes with Kafka’] played at Woodstock. Her song about that, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), was a FM radio hit in 1970, a great time to do a song about Woodstock. Her biggest hit was sort of a novelty song, Brand New Key. Her version of Ruby Tuesday was on FM radio as well. Her Wiki page said she left Buddah over artistic control and founded her own record label, putting out records on her own schedule. She played at the memorial concert for Phil Ochs in 1976.
I never knew that the four members of the Shangri-Las were Weiss, her sister, plus twin friends. They had memorable hits—among them Remember (Walking in the Sand), Give Him a Great Big Kiss, I Can Never Go Home Again, and Leader of the Pack. They had a lot of teen despair (well beyond angst). My mother, the English teacher, hated the spoken intro to Give Him a Great Big Kiss-‘you best believe I’m in love L-U-V’—as if high school kids would forget how to spell from Top 40 radio. There is a great finger snap followed by a hand clap in Remember, plus the sea gulls calling. There was a motorcycle revving followed by a crash in Leader of the Pack.
converselyspeaking 