Mel Street

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King Malachi Street (October 21, 1933 – October 21, 1978), commonly known as Mel Street, was an American country music singer.

Street was born in Grundy, Virginia to a coal mining family in 1933, although his family maintains that he was born in 1935. He began performing on western Virginia and West Virginia radio shows at the age of sixteen. Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician in Ohio, and as a nightclub performer in the Niagara Falls area. He moved back to West Virginia in 1963 to open up an auto body shop.

From 1968 to 1972, Street hosted his own show on a Bluefield, West Virginia television station. He recorded his first single "Borrowed Angel" in 1970 for a small regional record label. A larger label, Royal American Records, picked it up in 1972, and it became a top-10 Billboard hit. He recorded the biggest hit of his career, "Lovin' on the Back Streets" in 1973.

Street continued to flourish throughout the mid-1970s, recording several hits, such as "You Make Me Feel More Like a Man," "Forbidden Angel," "I Met a Friend of Yours Today," "If I Had a Cheatin' Heart," and "Smokey Mountain Memories." He signed with Mercury Records in 1978, but he gave in to clinical depression and alcoholism, committing suicide on October 21, 1978, his 45th birthday.

[edit] References

Huey, Steve. (2003). Edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, & Stephen Erlewine. "Mel Street (King Malachi Street)." All Music Guide to Country, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003. ISBN 0-87930-760-9