Mel Street - Mel Street/Country Soul

Troubled traditionalist guarded the flame for a new generation

The clue to making these two Mel Street discs available on CD for the first time may lie in this sentence from Tony Rounce’s sleevenotes: “The records he made at a time when mainstream country was dominated by pop productions and diluted lyrical messages permanently commemorate him as a standard-bearer for true country music…”

Listen to the 22 tracks without that context and you’ll likely hear a fine voice that combines a powerful George Jones-like intonation with earthy Hank Williams subject matter. Pleasant but not essential – and, by the time the second of these albums was recorded in 1978, Street’s years of drinking and mental turmoil had certainly roughened the edges of his vocal chords.

Mel Street, then, is one of those torch-bearers who kept the true flame alight; not very famous or outstandingly successful in his own right, he nevertheless ensured the transmission of a set of values to a younger generation of songwriters and music-makers. Given his fragile mental state (he committed suicide in October 1978), he might not have survived fame and fortune for long enough to enjoy it. Despite, or perhaps because of, his sad end, his work continues to transmit.

Poker | DECKCD 114

Reviewed by Tim Holmes
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