"Hole In The Wall"
Mel Waiters
Composed by Mel Waiters
February 17, 2007 Get out to your local newstand before the month winds down and snap up a copy of "Living Blues," currently the premiere blues magazine in America. The February 2007 issue (Issue #188) features a cover story entitled "Mel Waiters: Southern Soul King," with a smiling, immaculately white-suited Waiters clowning in front of yet another mural-sized image of a more reflective Waiters.
For Southern Soul fans, this is an instant collectors' item. Maybe it's because I've been in the print media much of my life, but when your Daddy B. Nice's complimentary copy arrived in the mail this week (another first), I performed a triple somersault and slipped the magazine into a plastic sheet protector and just gloated, as if it were a work of art. Not only is this a tremendous achievement for Mel Waiters, it's a benchmark event for Southern Soul music as a whole.
For those who can't find the issue, the magazine's number is 662-915-5742 or 800-390-3527. The magazine's address is P.O. Box 1848/301 Hill Hall/University, Mississippi/38677 (Living Blues Magazine).
Why is this such a momentous occasion? First, it's a long-overdue tribute to Mel Waiters, who as much as any other performer has made Southern Soul music "happen." I remember how, last year when I was writing my columns about Sir Charles Jones not being the "king of Southern Soul," just the "crown prince," I suggested that Marvin Sease was the real "king," with a nod to Willie Clayton. But even then, when I made the footnote about Willie Clayton, I remember thinking, "Should I make yet another footnote for Mel Waiters?"
The article is extensive, filled with the bounty of what must have been hours of conversation with Waiters. Waiters discusses his younger years in his native state of Texas, his burgeoning career (with lots of new information for Southern Soul connoisseurs) and the current state of the music.
Mel remarks on how all his songs come down to "hooks." This is so important, and yet so easily forgotten. Your Daddy B. Nice, who as much as any writer tends to focus on lyrics because music is so ephemeral and so difficult to describe in words, often wishes he could put a disclaimer on every review and artist guide: "I would have never written about this record or any of its lyrics or themes IF IT HAD NOT HAD A GREAT HOOK."
Mel also states that, although he has made a series of hits prominently featuring whiskey, that he doesn't drink!
But the prominence given this Southern Soul artist is--even more importantly--a significant success for the Southern Soul genre as a whole. Over the last decade I have watched this music grow to an extent no one would have believed possible. When I first started writing about it, no one even believed in the term ("Southern Soul") as a viable contemporary genre.
Southern Soul is still more a possibility than an actuality. But the tortuous road to the mainstream wends first through the huge and hungry blues-loving audience, both in America and the world, and the recognition "Living Blues" has accorded Mel Waiters is a significant step forward for Southern Soul. Another "door" has been opened.
--Daddy B. Nice
About Mel Waiters
Mel Waiters was born in San Antonio, Texas. He began singing in local teen clubs in the mid-seventies and honed his style while under contract to the United States as an entertainer at military bases throughout the Southwest. Whether or not his trademark, bleached-blonde hair pre-dated basketball player Dennis Rodman's "do" is not definitively known.
What is known is that beginning in the late nineties Mel Waiters rose to the forefront of blues vocalists with a series of brilliant adult R&B albums on Waldoxy Records (which deserves great credit for sticking with him) with hits that followed one after another as inexorably as the passing of the seasons: "Suki-Suki Man," "Swing Out," "Hit It And Quit It," "Got My Whiskey," "Man Shoes," "Show You How To Love Again," "Girls' Nite Out" and "The Smaller The Club," to name only a few.
As the new millennium has progressed, new Waiters product has continued to appear--always danceable, always radio-friendly. Deep South radio stations are rarely without a new Mel Waiters track on their "hot" or "just-added" play lists.
Mel Waiters' CD's:
1995: I'm Serious (Serious Sounds)
1997: Suki-Suki Man (Serious Sounds)
1997: Woman in Need (Waldoxy)
1999: Material Things (Waldoxy)
2000: I Want the Best (Suzie Q)
2001: Let Me Show You How to Love (Waldoxy)
2003: Nite Out (Waldoxy)
2005: Got My Whiskey (601)
2006: Throw Back Days (Waldoxy)
Song's Transcendent Moment
"Smoke-filled room,
Whiskey and chicken wings,
People dancin' and drinkin',
And no one wants to leave."
Tidbits
1.
Many fans delight in the references to fellow musicians imbedded in not a few Southern Soul songs and find them fascinating road maps to the genre as a whole. Those fans will especially enjoy Mel Waiters' "How Can I Get Next To You."
"I heard Bobby Womack" (Waiters sings) "on the telephone line,
And he said, 'Girl, you're running out of time.'
And he said, 'That's the way I feel about you.'"
And then. . .
"But just after Bobby Womack
Had split the scene,
I thought I had it made,
Until I heard about you from Al Green,
And Al said, 'Let's stay together.
Whether time's are good or bad, happy or sad.'"
Johnnie Taylor's "I Believe In You," Rufus Thomas's "Walking The Dog," James Brown's "Please Don't Go," Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" and Clarence Carter's "I'm Too Weak To Fight Any More" are also spotlighted.
2.
December 5, 2006. Your Daddy B. Nice has a confession to make: it often takes him awhile to "warm" to a Mel Waiters tune. That's the way it was (for me, at any rate) with Waiters' "Whiskey And Blues," from the excellent (and even more excellent in retrospect) Nite Out album. Nite Out arrived in 2003, but "Whiskey And Blues" sounded a little thin, a little too derivative. Then, almost two years later--sometime in 2005--I heard that salacious bass line and Mel drawing out the "Heyyyyyyyy. . . " in this verse coming over the radio:
"Hey Mr Bartender,
What time does this joint close?
You see it's going to take me awhile
To forget about her. . . "
And I was hooked. It was the point where the song kicked in musically for me, and from that time on I have absolutely craved hearing "Whiskey And Blues."
This by way of announcing Mel Waiter's new CD, Throw Back Days, published by Waldoxy in April of this year. "Throw Back Days," "Half Pint" and "I Like Your Sister" are the tracks that have been collecting the most airplay.
And--you can probably see this coming--I haven't "warmed" to "Throw Back Days." It still sounds a little thin, a little derivative. But I keep thinking about how I overlooked "Whiskey And Blues" and wondering whether or not the old-school atmosphere of "Throw Back Days" will hit me when I least expect it.
In the meantime, I can recommend "I Like Your Sister," a joyful, light-hearted melodic romp that made your Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Southern Soul Singles for October '06. It only took two listenings for me to crave it. DBN.
3.
A Throw Back Days postscript. I'd be remiss if I didn't report the way in which another single from the album, "Friday Night Fish Fry," dominated the chitlin' circuit radio charts through the first half of 2007.
At year's end it also earned a nomination for Daddy B. Nice's "Daddy" award for Best Southern Soul Song By An Established Veteran.
4.
Feb. 29, 2008. Mel Waiters didn't release an album in 2007, his last being 2006's Throw Back Days, so expectations are high that 2008 will be a year of new Waiters product.
Mel hasn't been loafing. For the second year running, he's been headlining the Southern Soul star-studded "Blues Is Alright Tour," which has been traveling all around the country since late January and will continue into March. Unlike some of the headliners, who have only appeared in the Deep or Mid-South, Mel has been appearing in the northern-tier cities, including many that had never seen a Southern Soul concert of this magnitide before. That would include Milwaukee tonight, where your Daddy B. Nice's brother and his significant other will be watching Mel Waiters for the first time.
For more about the "Blues Is Alright Tour," visit the Concert Calendar page.
Postscript: Longtime Mel Waiters fans who are familiar with this page but want more to read about the artist would do well to check out the many entries under "Mel Waiters" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index, an index to Mel Waiters items and references scattered throughout the pages of the website. Also check the "Tidbits" section below for updates.
DBN.
5.
April 11, 2010: NEW ALBUM ALERT
I Ain't Gone Do It CD
(Waldoxy)
Bargain-Priced I Ain't Gone Do It CD
See Daddy B. Nice's #1 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single: March 2010
6.
November 5, 2010: "Meet Me Tonight"--Daddy B. Nice's #1 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for November 2010.
See Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles.
7.
January 23, 2011:
Mel Waiter's I AIN'T GONE DO IT album wins BEST SOUTHERN SOUL CD OF THE YEAR: See 4th Annual "Daddies," Southern Soul Music Awards
And in "2010: The Year In Review," Daddy B. Nice writes:
"Above all, 2010 was the year of Mel Waiters. The star finally released the bounty from his recording hiatus, rolling out his new CD and one big Southern Soul single after another--"Everything's Going Up," "I Ain't Gone Do It," "Meet Me Tonight"--topping the Southern Soul singles charts time and again.
Waiters accomplished perhaps the hardest feat in the music business: an aging artist redefining himself, giving his well-known "brand" daring tweaks to make his music sound new and relevant.
And nowhere was this magic more evident than in the title tune of his I AIN'T GONE DO IT album, in which he confessed to trying Viagra ("didn't do a thing") and begged off trying to keep up with the clubbing life."
--Daddy B. Nice
*********
See Daddy B. Nice's "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for January 2011: Mel Waiters' "Barbeque" (with Cupid)
*********
8.
July 9, 2011: NEW ALBUM ALERT
Bargain-Priced Say What's On Your Mind CD.
The CD contains "When You Get Drunk," "Little Girls Can't Do What Big Girls Do."
See "Good Women," Daddy B. Nice's #4 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for July 2011.
If You Liked. . . You'll Love
If you loved Sam & Dave's "Soul Man," you'll like Mel Waiters' "Hole In The Wall.
Honorary "B" Side
"Whiskey And Blues"
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