eptember 6, 2008 - Saturday

Melanie Headlining Ozark Folk Festival!

Current mood: ecstatic

Folk Music Icon Melanie

To Headline Ozark Folk Festival

(EUREKA SPRINGS, AR) -- World peace advocate and folk music icon, Melanie, has been named to headline the 61st Annual Original Ozark Folk Festival here in November. Her performance will be part of her Motherhood of Love world peace tour and will climax a weekend of nationally known singer-songwriters performing at venues throughout Eureka Springs.

New York-born Melanie Safka hit the national stage as the voice of "flower power" with her song, Beautiful People at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival in 1969. A prolific artist, she has released an average of one new album per year since then and has sold over 80 million records to date. She was the top-selling recording artist in the world in 1971 and the Billboard Magazine Female Vocalist in 1972.

Melanie has been at the forefront of the peace movement since the early 60's and recently received an Ambassador of Peace award in Korea for her peace efforts there. She performed in the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), a heavily armed no-man's land, as part of the "Flower Power Peace Festival" to help establish enduring peace throughout the world.

The United Nations invited her to be the first artist ever to perform at an opening of the General Assembly. Her performance received a standing ovation. She was also the first solo pop/rock artist to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House and the Sydney (Australia) Opera House.

Melanie was the second artist (after the Beatles) to have three songs on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 at the same time (1972: Brand New Key, Ring the Living Bell, and The Nickel Song.) Other career highlights include recordings such as Peace will Come, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), and What Have They Done to My Song, Ma? Honors include a triple-Platinum single for Brand New Key and an Emmy Award for her lyrics to The First Time I Loved Forever.

Motherhood of Love is the name of her latest song and tour. The song includes a Sanskrit mantra designed to attune thoughts to world peace. She appears with her son, Beau-Jarred Schekeryk, guitar virtuoso and producer of the new song.

Melanie appears Sunday, Nov. 9 at the City Auditorium to culminate the 61st Annual Original Ozark Folk Festival, the longest, continuously-running folk festival in the U.S. For more on Melanie go online at www.melaniesmusic.com/ and for details on the Ozark Folk Festival go online at www.ozarkfolkfestival.com or www.theaud.org.