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Mel Street
Mel Street
	Street in 1975
Background information
Birth name	King Malachi Street
Born	October 21, 1933; Grundy, Virginia, United States
Died	October 21, 1978 (aged 45); Hendersonville, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Country
Occupation	Singer-songwriter
Instrument	Guitar
Years active	1972–1978
Labels	Metromedia, GRT, Polydor, Mercury

King Malachi "Mel" Street (October 21, 1933 – October 21, 1978)^[1] was an American country music singer who had 13 top-20 hits on the Billboard country charts.

Biography

Street was born near Grundy, Virginia, United States.^[2]^[3] Publications cite his year of birth as 1933 and his family also maintains that he was born in 1933. However, his gravestone gives the year as 1936.^[4]^[5] He began performing on western Virginia and West Virginia radio shows at the age of sixteen.^[6] Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician in Ohio,^[6] and as a nightclub performer in the Niagara Falls, New York area.^[7] He moved back to West Virginia in 1963 to open an auto body shop.^[8]

From 1968 to 1972, Street hosted a show on a Bluefield, West Virginia television station.^[9] He recorded his first single, "Borrowed Angel" – which he also wrote – in 1969 for a small regional record label, Tandem Records.^[6] A larger label, Royal American Records, picked it up in 1972 and it became a top-10 Billboard hit.^[6] He recorded the biggest hit of his career, "Lovin' on Back Streets", in 1972.^[6]

Street's last television appearance was in 1977, in which he performed his 1976 hit "I Met A Friend Of Yours Today" on That Good Ole Nashville Music.

Street recorded several hits in the mid-1970s, 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 suffering from clinical depression and alcoholism,^[6] he killed himself by a self-inflicted gunshot on October 21, 1978, his 45th birthday.^[3] He had a record debut on the country charts on October 21 as well, called "Just Hangin' On",^[10] and later charted four posthumous songs. Street's idol, George Jones, sang "Amazing Grace" at his funeral.^[6]

His posthumous album, Mel Street's Greatest Hits, was promoted via television advertisements in 1981, and sold 400,000 copies.^[6]

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	US Country	Label
1972	Borrowed Angel	14	Metromedia Country
1973	The Town Where You Live / Walk Softly On the Bridges	37	Metromedia Country
1974	Two Way Street	37	GRT
1975	Smokey Mountain Memories	16
1976	Mel Street's Greatest Hits	26
1976	Country Colors	—
1977	Mel Street	45	Polydor
1978	Country Soul	47	Polydor
1978	Mel Street	—	Mercury
1980	Many Moods of Mel	61	Sunbird

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions		Album
Year	Single	US Country	CAN Country	Album
1972	"Borrowed Angel"	7	9	Borrowed Angel
1972	"Lovin' On Back Streets"	5	8	Borrowed Angel
1973	"Walk Softly On the Bridges"	11	6	The Town Where You Live / Walk Softly On the Bridges
	"The Town Where You Live"	38	58	The Town Where You Live / Walk Softly On the Bridges
	"Lovin' On Borrowed Time"	11	7	Two Way Street
1974	"You Make Me Feel More Like a Man"	15	—	Two Way Street
1974	"Forbidden Angel"	16	47	Smokey Mountain Memories
1975	"Smokey Mountain Memories"	13	43
	"Even If I Have to Steal"	17	17
	"(This Ain't Just Another) Lust Affair"	23	—
1976	"The Devil in Your Kisses (And the Angel in Your Eyes)"	32	—	Mel Street's Greatest Hits
	"I Met a Friend of Yours Today"	10	—	Country Colors
	"Looking Out My Window Through the Pain"	24	—
1977	"Rodeo Bum"	56	—
	"Barbara Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know"	19	—	Mel Street (1977)
	"Close Enough for Lonesome"	15	—	Mel Street (1977)
1978	"If I Had a Cheating Heart"	9	—	Country Soul
	"Shady Rest"	24	—	Country Soul
	"Just Hangin' On"	68	—	Mel Street (1978)
1979	"The One Thing My Lady Never Puts Into Words"	17	—	Many Moods of Mel
1980	"Tonight Let's Sleep On It Baby"	30	—
1980	"Who'll Turn Out the Lights"	36	—
1981	"Slip Away" (w/ Sandy Powell)	48	—

Footnotes

^ "October 21, 1978: Country Music Star Tragically Commits Suicide". November 8, 2021.
^ "October 21, 1933: Country Musician Mel Street Born in Virginia". West Virginia Public Broadcasting. October 21, 2019. Retrieved March 7, 2020.
^ ^a ^b Nelson, Dick (August 27, 2017). "Sunday Morning Country Classic Spotlight to Feature Mel Street". 98.1 Minnesota's New Country. Retrieved March 7, 2020.
^ Schuler and Delp 2002, p. 23.
^ "Mel Street – Grave of a Famous Person". Waymarking.com. The Social Security Death Index also shows 1936.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Colin Larkin, ed. (1993). The Guinness Who's Who of Country Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 398. ISBN 0-85112-726-6.
^ "Mel Street | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
^ Schuler and Delp 2002, p. 46.
^ Schuler and Delp 2002, p. 51.
^ Schuler and Delp 2002, p. 243.

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
Schuler, Dennis Sr. and Larry J. Delp. Mel Street – A Country Legend, Charleston, WV: Mountain State Press, 2002. ISBN 0-941092-47-X