Solo - Crying in the Rain - Germany 1983
Trapeze - Midnight Flyer - Dallas 94
Phenomena - Did It All For Love
MGM - Abuser - Reading Festival 1987
MGM - Palace of The King - Reading Festival 1987
MGM - Rough an Ready - Reading Festival 1987
Whitesnake - Mistreated - Donington Park 1983
Whitesnake - Love Hunter - Donington Park 1983
Whitesnake - Guilty of Love - Donington Park 83
Whitesnake - Here I Go Again - Donington Park 83
Whitesnake - Walking In The Shadow of The Blues - Donington Park 83
Whitesnake - Rough and Ready - Donington Park 1983
Whitesnake - Ready and Willing - Donington Park 83
Whitesnake - Ain't No Love - Donington Park 1983
Whitesnake - Fool For Your Loving - Donington Park 83
Whitesnake - Crying In The Rain - Germany 83
Whitesnake - Wine, Women and Song - Germany 83
Hello
and welcome to Mel's OFFICIAL page. Mel passed away on July 1st 2008. He wanted his page to be kept running and so here it is - left as it originally was but for these words.
Despite not touring with my band Trapeze
for 10 years I have come to realise that there is still a significant interest
in the music I wrote, played and sang during my career with Trapeze, Whitesnake,
MGM and Phenomena. As I currently have no website this seemed the ideal place to put some basic info, music, pictures and to keep you informed of anything I think you may be interested in. I would like to thank all the fans on the
excellent Glenn Hughes fan site www.ghpg.net who have played a significant part
in convincing me to set this up.
And now for a brief biography :
Trapeze were formed
in 1969 and consisted of myself,
Glenn Hughes,
Dave Holland,
John Jones and
Terry Rowley. We signed
for a newly formed label called Threshold
that had been set up by The Moody Blues. Our first album was the self-titled Trapeze.Glenn,Dave and I found we were going in a different
musical direction to the others and we then became what is now known as a
"Power Trio". In November 1970 the three of us released the album Medusa which
was received, it's fair to say, with universal acclaim. One of the press
reviews hailed Medusa as, "One of the biggest finds of the year; three English lads have added a new dimension to the
loudest of hard rock. For any Led Zeppelin
fan here is the group that is to carry on their legacy". We were very much in demand in the USA
and soon began to play in big venues. The tracks Black
Cloud/Your Love is Alright were released there and attracted heavy radio exposure in the Southern states. We
seemed to tour the USA non-stop for a couple of years!Due to our constant touring in 1971 we had no
time to write and record anything so it wasn't until the end of 1972 that we
released You Are The Music We're Just The Band. This was as well received as Medusa and we were really on a roll. But then...in June 1973 Deep Purple made Glenn Hughes an offer few could have refused.
An invitation was made to replace Roger Gloverwho along with Ian
Gillan had gone from the band.These days few people seem to mention the fact that Deep Purple were bigger than Led Zeppelin back
then, but they were in fact the biggest selling band in America
in 1973. At the time I was very upset
but I couldn't really blame him. Who
knows what this line-up could have gone on to achieve. The loss of Glenn was a real blow to the band and Threshold America issued "the last rites" by
assembling a "best of" compilation called The
Final Swingwith two previously un-issued tracks Good Love/Dat's it. With its release, our recording obligations to Threshold were completed. Ironically it was our
first album to crack the Top 200.
I must say though that Glennformed a great vocal team in Deep Purple
with the then unknown other new guy David
Coverdale and the resulting Burn
album is a classic.
We then signed with Warner
Brothers with Pete Wright
(Bass) and Rob Kendrick
(Guitar/Vocals) joining and released Hot Wire
in January 1975and Trapeze in
1976.
For the next album Pete Goalby
(who later joined Uriah Heep) replaced Rob and Hold On was
released in 1978. I thought this was a
great album. It was released as Running in Germany
and had a different album cover featuring 5 naked young women. Well, actually the same woman 5 times. This cover is quite rare nowadays. I haven't put it in my pictures in case I get
told off but you can find it easy enough on the Internet.
Dave Holland then
left to have ten very successful years with Judas
Priest notching up seven albums with them. He was replaced by Steve Bray and a live album Live
in Texas: Dead Armadillos came out in July 1981 with music from our USAtour earlier that year.
After that tour I decided to stay on in Dallas
and take some time off to write some new songs. On a visit back to Britainpromoter Maurice Jones invited me
to the Monsters Of Rock festival at DoningtonPark
where Whitesnake were supporting AC/DC. David
Coverdale heard I was there and came looking for me to say he had
decided to reorganize the band. He asked
me to join but I was busy writing new material for a new project called Phenomena that had been put together with my
brother Tom, and also songs for a new Trapeze album. The
Phenomena album had loads
of publicity due to its great set of musicians including
Cozy Powell,
Neil Murray,
John Thomas (Budgie),
Don Airey,
Ted McKenna,
Richard Bailey and
Glenn. It was released on Bronze
in 1984 and sold pretty well.
I finally joined Whitesnake six months later and we did plenty
of touring for the next couple of years including headlining the Monsters of Rock festival in 1983. Some of the songs that I had written during
the previous sessions ended up being used on the Slide
It In album that came out in early 1984. All of the other songs (except Slow an Easy) were written by me
and David once I had joined. There
are several bootlegs out there which contain my early pre Whitesnake demos and you will notice that they
had different lyrics back then. David used his own for the Whitesnake versions. Micky Moody left soon after recording finished and John Sykes came in to the band. The album was
remixed with John adding guitar parts
and Jon Lord disappearing in the mix
for a more Americanised production sound. The song order was changed
round too.There are plenty of opinions
as to which version is better but the USA version ended up selling over
2 million copies there so you could say David
was right. And of course he went even more that way with the multi million
selling follow up 1987.
In 1986 I formed MGM
with former Whitesnakemen Bernie Marsden and
Neil Murray, plus John Marter (Mr Big, Voyager & Marillion). The band toured extensively and
received rave reviews at the venues we played.I then decided to take some time off to write some new material and
spend more time with my family.
In the summer of 1987 I worked with Tom writing songs for the second Phenomena release Dream
Runner. Glenn appeared on this with the likes of Scott Gorham(Thin
Lizzy), John Wetton(ASIA), Neil
Murray and the late, great Ray Gillen. This album sold very well and my song Did It All For Love was released as a single
and a video made. John Wetton sings it and it's in my video list.
In 1992 Glenn, Daveand I reformed Trapeze for some shows and Geoff
Downes (ASIA) played with us ..boards. One of these shows ended up coming out on cd
as Welcome to the Real World in 1993. The 3 of us also played some shows in the USA
in 1994 as a 25th Anniversary tour and a tribute show to Ray Gillen.
Since then I have effectively retired from performing but I
still like to go and see some bands every now and then and I saw Glennand his new band featuring Jeff Kollman and Mark
Mondesir play a storming show on his tour in 2006 to promote his latest release
Music
for the Divine. Glenn is still an incredible singer and bass
player and I wish him all the best with the continued success of his solo
work. The
Voice of Rock indeed!
Trapeze albums have
continued to be released since the band ended.The live Way Back to the Bone
cd was issued in 1998 featuring the 3-piece band playing way back in the early
70s. Another live cd At the Boat Club 1975 was released in
2003. It was one of the last shows
played by the line-up of me, Dave, Rob and Pete. I wrote some notes for the cd booklet in
which I mention one of my most memorable highlights - playing the Cotton
Bowl in Dallas with the Rolling Stones, The Eagles and Montrose. Now that was a show!
Thanks for reading to the bottom and if there is anything I
have missed out I'm sure you will tell me!
We are very excited about playing at such an awesome jazz club. We have some great sets lined up for you, so don't miss it. Friday and Saturday November 20th and 21st, 5:00-8:30p at Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago
Aaron Koppel -Guitar, Matt Nelson; (Lupe Fiasco, Matthew Santos) -Keyboard, Graham Czach; (Chicago Afrobeat Project) -bass, Robert Tucker (Matthew Santos) -drums
greetings from the U.S. thanx for adding us . just wanted to say never met mel ,got into trapeze after glen went for deep purple, but wanted to add that when i heard trapeze i was blown away, the guitars where so funky and full of soul and really alot of feeling unlike alot of what was going on at that time, very orignal Mel will be sadly missed. just wanted to say MEL, YOU ARE THE MUSIC peace brother
Thanks for your friendship, have a look at DEONLIGUAN, it's my band, I'm playing again because of them, I love them, www.myspace.com/deonliguanrock, good luck and R&R from Pamplona (Spain)
Had the honor of meeting Mel on the TRAPEZE reunion tour in the 90s. He was such a nice guy. Really down to earth and sincerely grateful when I mentioned I had driven 3 and half hours to Cleveland to see them play. He signed my albums and was just sincerely humble.. I will never forget that night, and thankfully he left behind amazing music as well! R.I.P. Mel... you are gone, but NEVER FORGOTTEN!!
God Yes how I enjoyed that version of THe Raid:) Awesome... Mel sounding and feeling RIGHT:) Damn he is so cool. Mel thank you always and always forever for being in my world. You are the reason I play music:)
Finally it's here! Brand new Janesession's album is
to be released in autumn 2009. For some samples click
http://www.myspace.com/janesession Order now and have it for only 5
Euros and postage. Send your orders to: shop.janesession@gmail.com