The Grey Man - Tapa blanda

Mel has done nothing else in his working life but sing country music – he’s "The Real Thing". He attributes his genuine affinity for country music to his upbringing in Canada from 1952 to 1961 where country radio was available almost 24 hours a day at the spin of a dial.

In 1998 he set out to realise a life-long ambition to become a novelist and has since written three westerns, "To Hell with the Badge", "Death on a Rope" and "Twisted River", and a horror novel, "The Grey Man". He intends to write a series of 12 to 15 westerns using the same lead characters. He is also researching material for a science fiction novel called "The Gathering". His sights are set on working from home: "the road gets harder every year".

Mel Hague is more than just an old pro, he’s a songwriter as well. He made his first recording in 1966, an EP (remember them?) called "Mule Train", which carried three tracks: the title song, a Hank Williams song and a self-penned song called "Don't Say a Word". Since then he’s made 17 albums and a video. There are precious few with that sort of pedigree on the UK side of the big pond.

He’s been a broadcaster too, spending ten years with BBC Radio Sheffield, presenting a weekly one-hour show, and a year with Great Yorkshire Radio, presenting a weekly three hour show. On both stations he was well known for promoting British country music.

He has also done a stint as a journalist: doing the occasional piece for Country Music Round Up, a weekly column for the South Yorkshire Times which ran for two years and he’s currently writing CD and book reviews for The New Entertainer in Doncaster as well as a fortnightly column for the Doncaster Free Press. The Goole Courier also take his book reviews and in the last two years the monthly magazines Traditional Music Maker and Country Music & Dance in Scotland along with X Country have also been taking his CD reviews.

Mel has won numerous awards at both club and national level as recently as 2001. His finest hour was probably as Country Music Entertainer of the Year in the 1981 Aria/Daily Mirror Golden Guitar Awards.

Putting all the above to one side, the thing that Mel Hague cherishes most is the genuine respect he has from most of his peers. Having a severe disability (Congenital Cerebral Palsy), it’s been a hard slog for him to make it in a tough, uncompromising business. Without the support and respect of performers and promoters and his ‘rock’ (his wife Ivy) he wouldn’t have gone the distance or considered carrying on any further as his disability bears down ever harder with each passing year.

In his act he covers the lot from Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves to Don Williams, Waylon Jennings and Bobby Bare to Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Confederate Railroad, The Tractors and The Mavericks with up to a dozen humourous songs and a dry cutting edge sense of humour. You will never hear Mel Hague say, "This is a blah, blah number and it goes like this."