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Mel Melton | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | Gastonia, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Genres | Zydeco, Cajun music Blues |
| Instrument(s) | Voice, harmonica, rubboard |
| Years active | 1972-present |
Mel Melton is an American musician, singer, and chef. Much of his music is in the Zydeco style and his cooking primarily focuses on the culture of southern Louisiana.
A native of Gastonia, North Carolina, Roy "Mel" Melton first went to Lafayette, Louisiana, to visit a college friend during the summer and play music before returning to the University of North Carolina. He changed his plans when he fell in love with the rich culture and physical beauty of southwest Louisiana. Melton soon moved permanently to Lafayette and began playing in a band he co-founded with slide-guitar player Sonny Landreth.
To help support his musical career, Melton took a series of jobs and eventually discovered a new talent and another part of the Cajun lifestyle: Louisiana cooking. Over the next fifteen years, he honed his musical and cooking skills, eventually becoming a well-known Cajun chef. At the same time, he was becoming known as a singer and a harmonica player who created a Zydeco style of playing that put him in great demand. In addition to playing with Sonny Landreth, Melton was frequently on stage with the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier, and spent a year touring with internationally known Zachary Richard.
Melton recorded on Landreth's first record, Blues Attack, which also featured C.J. Chenier on saxophone and Buckwheat Zydeco on the Hammond organ. [1] In 1982, Landreth and Melton formed the band Bayou Rhythm, and eventually added C.J. Chenier to the lineup. The band recorded Way Down in Louisiana in 1985. [2] A song on that record “Congo Square,” was co-written by Landreth and Melton and has since been recorded by The Neville Brothers, John Mayall, Tom Principato and several other artists. Bayou Rhythm toured heavily, [3] headlined national shows and also opened for musicians including Ray Charles, B.B. King, Dr. John, The Neville Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dave Edmunds, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
One of the special attractions of a Bayou Rhythm concert began at the American Music Festival in 1986, when Melton was challenged to a gumbo cook-off with fellow musician Rockin Dopsie. The success of the event led Melton to cook more as part of his bands’ gigs. [4]
In 1986, Melton left the band to pursue a full-time chef career in Chicago. In the first month there, as chef at Capers, he won the Grand Prize at the Rolls-Royce/Krug Champagne Invitational Chef Competition. The restaurant was named one of the top ten new Chicago restaurants of 1987. He frequently did cooking demonstrations and appeared on various Chicago radio and television programs. He was also a featured chef at the Chicago Jazz Festival, The American Cancer Society Christmas Gala, and Mardi Gras at the Limelight Club.[ citation needed ]
In 1990, Melton moved back home to North Carolina, where he continued showcasing his cooking skills at numerous events and cooking schools and by opening several restaurants. In 1995, he formed his current band, Mel Melton & the Wicked Mojos, and in 1998 recorded his first CD, Swampslinger, for New Moon Music, a Chapel Hill-based blues label. The CD was named one of the top ten blues CD of the year by The Washington Post. He followed that up with Mojo Dream in 2000, on the Nashville-based Nightfly label, [5] and it was awarded “Zydeco Record of the Year” by Real Blues Magazine. He also authored his first cookbook, Cookie Boy, the Authentic Cajun Recipes of Mel Melton, published by Kartobi Press of Farmington, New Mexico.
Melton's third album with his band was Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse, featuring guest appearances by Sonny Landreth and Trisha Yearwood's former guitarist, Johnny Garcia, on Louisiana Red Hot Records. The record covers the scale of Louisiana dance hall music, “with rowdy Zydeco and Cajun tunes, swamp bop, juke joint blues and New Orleans funk.” Music journalist Philip Van Vleck (Billboard, Dirty Linen, Metro), said in Triangle Live: “It’s the best record he’s ever released because he just keeps getting better instead of older. His vocal work has never been more forceful, or polished, and his harmonica playing is simply unfailingly brilliant.”[ citation needed ]
Melton's band features Max Drake on guitar. [6] Melton describes his band's sound and his songs, as “Mojo Music.” “It’s like the food,” he stated. “Down in Louisiana everyone cooks, and they like to stir it up their own way. And when people leave one of our shows I want them to feel like they’ve been down in the swamp at a big party and they’ve had a great time. That’s what it’s all about.” [ citation needed ]
In 2007, Melton opened Papa Mojo's Roadhouse in Durham, North Carolina. There he focused on how bringing in first-class original musical talent became a stopping-off point for many acts on tour through the southeast. The food at Papa Mojo's Roadhouse was critically acclaimed as being one of the best places for authentic Cajun food outside of Louisiana. In 2008, celebrity television chef Bobby Flay presented Melton with the restaurant's award first place in the casual dining category during the N.C. State Fair. In 2014, Melton closed Papa Mojo's Roadhouse to focus on his music and to continue teaching cooking. He frequently plays in North Carolina and Virginia and several of his 2018 shows featured John Dee Holeman. [7]
With Sonny Landreth
With Bayou Rhythm
With Mel Melton and the Wicked Mojos
Charter Member of Chefs de Cuisine Acadian, Lafayette, LA, 1983
Grand prize winner, Rolls-Royce / Krug Champagne Invitational Chef Competition, Chicago, IL, June 1986 [8]
Named as one of the top ten new restaurants in Chicago, Chicago Tribune & Pioneer Press, Chicago, IL, January, 1987
Certified Senior Executive Chef, Marriott Conference Services, Duke University Fuqua School of Business, Durham, NC, 1991
Grand Prize Winner - Casual Restaurant, Best in the State Award, State of N.C. Agricultural Commission, 2008
Second Place Winner - Casual Restaurant, Best in the State Award, State of N.C. Agricultural Commission, 2009 & 2010
Voted Best Cajun Restaurant in the Triangle - Indy Week, 2009 - 2013 [9]
Performed and cooked with Paula Deen at the Durham Performing Arts Center, 2010
Named one the Fifteen Best Cheeseburgers in the U.S. - Wisconsin Cheese Board, 2012
Selected to appear on Deep Fried Masters, episode featuring fair food and “Got to Be NC”, 2013 [10]
Zydeco is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers. It blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Although it is distinct in origin from the Cajun music of Louisiana, the two forms influenced each other, forming a complex of genres native to the region.
Stanley Dural Jr., better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band, but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.
The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.
Clifton Chenier, was an American musician known as a pioneer of zydeco, a style of music which arose from Creole music, with R&B, blues, and Cajun influences. He sang and played the accordion and won a Grammy Award in 1983.
Maison de Soul is a Louisiana-based Zydeco and blues record label. It was founded in 1974 in Ville Platte, Louisiana by Floyd Soileau and remains under his ownership. It is one of four record labels under Soileau's Flat Town Music Company umbrella, and combined the Flat Town labels make up "the largest body of Cajun, zydeco, and swamp music in the world". Living Blues magazine has called Maison de Soul "the country's foremost zydeco label".
Wilson Anthony "Boozoo" Chavis was an American accordion player, singer, songwriter and bandleader. He was one of the pioneers of zydeco, the fusion of Louisiana Creole and blues music developed in southwest Louisiana.
Clide Vernon "Sonny" Landreth is an American blues musician from southwest Louisiana who is especially known as a slide guitar player. He was born in Canton, Mississippi, and settled in Lafayette, Louisiana. He lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
Rod Bernard was an American singer who helped to pioneer the musical genre known as "swamp pop", which combined New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun and black Creole music. He is generally considered one of the foremost musicians of this south Louisiana-east Texas idiom, along with such notables as Bobby Charles, Johnnie Allan, Tommy McLain, and Warren Storm.
C. J. Chenier is the Creole son of the Grammy Award-winning "King of Zydeco", Louisiana musician, Clifton Chenier. In 1987, Chenier followed in his father's footsteps and led his father's band as an accordion performer and singer of zydeco, a blend of cajun and creole music. With five previous albums to his credit, by 1994, Chenier began to record for Chicago-based Alligator Records.
The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States.
Christian Dozzler is an Austrian blues, boogie woogie and zydeco multi-instrumentalist and singer, now based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He plays piano, harmonica, accordion and organ, and writes most of his recorded material. He has been nicknamed "Vienna Slim".
South of I-10 is the fourth studio album from Sonny Landreth. The album features his first collaboration with Mark Knopfler.
Cornelius Green III, known professionally as Lonesome Sundown, was an American blues musician, best known for his swamp blues recordings for Excello Records in the 1950s and early 1960s.
John Dee Holeman was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His music includes elements of Texas blues, R&B and African-American string-band music. In his younger days he was also known for his proficiency as a buckdancer.
Nathan Williams Sr. is an American zydeco accordionist, singer and songwriter. He established his band Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas in 1985.
Andre Thierry is an American Zydeco musician. He leads the band Zydeco Magic.
Mojo & The Bayou Gypsies is a band led by Mojo from Breaux Bridge Louisiana. Their music is a blend of zydeco, Cajun and their particular style which he calls Red Hot Mojo Music. Circa 2018, they consist of Mojo on vocals and Cajun accordion, Zydeco T Carrier on Frottoir, Greg Hirte on Cajun fiddle, Tee John Moser on drums, and Beau Brian Burke on bass.
Bogalusa Boogie is a studio album by the American zydeco musician Clifton Chenier. It was released in 1975 via Arhoolie Records. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the album was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.
Hot Rod is an album by the American musician C.J. Chenier, released in 1990. He is credited with the Red Hot Louisiana Band. Although Chenier grew up listening primarily to R&B, he considered Hot Rod to be a traditional zydeco album.
Bayou Ruler is an album by the American band Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, released in 1998. A couple of its English-language songs were regional hits, although they proved controversial to some Cajun traditionalists. The band supported the album with a North American tour.
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