Meltons' Vintage Vinyl Expands Fan Interest

Staff reporter, News Journal Papers, Wilmington, DE, 11/14/2003

Dale Melton opened his e-mail one day last summer and found a message that brought back memories of youth and the passion that fueled his career as leader of a pop-rock band in Wilmington with his twin brother, Dennis. It was the start of something that has the Meltons amazed and delighted. "I live in Vermont," wrote 24-year-old Nate Bosshard, "and we just had a local vintage vinyl sale and I stumbled across your 'Livin' in the City' record from 1978. I am also a radio DJ ... and I have been playing this record pretty hard."

"Livin' in the City." Dale Melton remembered it well. It was a live recording by the Melton Brothers Band (Dale on piano, Dennis on bass, both on vocals) with singer Alfie Moss and drummer Tyrone Wilson. They made the album of sunny pop-funk themselves - about 2,000 copies - and sold it in area stores and at gigs they played in Wilmington and elsewhere in the area. "We just wanted to do an album, just as a way to promote the band, share the music and take a shot at the big time," Dale Melton said the other day. The album, released in early 1979, did not make the Meltons stars. Though they continued to play music, they soon found themselves occupied more and more by day jobs. Moss has performed regularly since then in the region's jazz clubs, including Zanzibar Blue in Wilmington.

But now Bosshard from Vermont - and his listeners at the University of Vermont radio station in Burlington - was listening so intensely that he wanted to know more about the album. He Googled the Melton Brothers and found out. Other fans in Vermont sent e-mails, and then came one from a collector in California who also reissues old albums. He raved about "Livin' in the City" tracks "that sounded quite amazing." In fact, the e-mails just keep coming. The latest came from a radio DJ on Martha's Vineyard who plans to play songs from it on his show. "Some of the e-mails I get remind me of how I felt about so much of it back then," said Dale Melton "We would buy a vinyl album and look at every nook and cranny of it and really listen to it, not just as background music but to absorb every note."

After "Livin' in the City" came out, Dale Melton founded Melton Communications, which published the city entertainment newspaper Fine Times during the 1980s. Melton Communications launched the still-thriving concept of nightclub and restaurant "Loops" in Wilmington. Dennis Melton became an architect and has an office in Kennett Square, Pa.

Bosshard was more intrigued by 1978, though. So much so that he contacted the editor of Wax Poetics, a national publication devoted in general to old viny albums and in particular to albums with beats suitable for sampling on hip-hop records. He co-wrote an article about the band and album for the fall issue, which is now available (go to www.waxpoetics.com). Meanwhile, Wax Poetics editors wowed listeners by playing tracks from "Livin' in the City" at a trade show in Las Vegas. And interest spread beyond this country. A fan in Sweden wrote to say how much he liked the album. Like others, he wondered if they had other copies "in a cupboard somewhere."

Ah yes, those other copies. What happened to them, anyway? Turns out the remaining copies were sitting in a box in a room next to the recording studio Dale Melton built at his house near Unionville, Pa. He moved there six years ago with Joan Bristol. "I just had all this stuff from that period in boxes down there," Melton said. "They were collecting dust." There are two versions. The first handful came with a green, orange and ivory cover. The Meltons are now selling that version for $100. The cover was changed to black and white for the rest of the run. Those go for $50.

'Soulful and funky' The two different covers have intrigued the Meltons' new fans. So has the image of the musicians on both versions. "Here were these twin brother guys" - white guys who call to mind Opie on the "Andy Griffith Show" even in their 50s - "and these two African Americans," Bosshard said. "I figured this looks like an interesting combination." But it's the music he and the others are most interested in. "It's real soulful and funky," Bosshard said. "The first thing that drew me was Alfie's voice. The drum breaks, the keyboards - it all fit well."

The Meltons and Moss resumed their performances together a few years ago and still play songs from the album. They play occasionally at Deep Blue in Wilmington and at clubs and community events in West Chester, Kennett Square and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. They are also putting

together a CD version of the album, due later this year. Their schedule and other information are available at www.meltonbrothers.net. They had lost track of drummer Wilson until just a few weeks ago, when Moss was surprised to run across him on Spruce Street. She and her musician/husband Dexter Koonce own a home there, and Wilson had moved in down the street. "What timing, after not hearing from him for almost 20 years," Moss said. "He said he had been in the ministry for many years and had just moved up from Maryland."

Wilson was crucial on the two songs that appeal most to the new fans: the title track and "I'll Take You There." Both feature his drum breaks. Drum breaks are popular with the folks at Wax Poetics. The magazine features the kind of music hip-hop producers like to sample - use snippets of an actual recording - in their own work. "The album has three classic requirements for beat diggers," said Brian DiGenti, 30, editor of the New York City-based magazine. "It's very rare. It's mysterious. It has a monster drum break on it." For DiGenti and his readers, interest in sample-ready beats leads to interest in the entire recording. "Once you have a roomful of records you don't just listen to one piece or one drum break. Our readers pick up on everything involved."

In the first part of Bosshard's article in Wax Poetics, a collector named Ben Velez talks about getting a copy of "Livin' in the City" from a mysterious Japanese collector in New York City. A few years later Velez moved to Vermont, where he showed the album to Bosshard, who then found a copy at the sale. DiGenti thinks the Japanese collector might have sent copies to Japan and that the album might have been sampled there without credit as early as the 1980s. He thinks it may well have been sampled in this country too, again without credit. After the heady early days of sampling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, producers were required to pay for sampled music. But Melton said he doesn't care if he gets paid or not. He does hope that the band's newfound fame will increase their number of performance dates - maybe even gigs overseas where new fans are springing up.

Reach Gary Mullinax at gmullinax@delawareonline.com.