Ken Mellons Biography

Kenneth Edward Mellons, 10 July 1965, Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. Honky-tonk singer-songwriter Mellons wanted to play country music from a very early age. He grew up attending shows, festivals and the Grand Ole Opry and subsequently landed a job at Opryland USA impersonating country performers. This led to an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry itself and growing recognition around Nashville. Producer Jerry Cupit helped Mellons land a recording contract with Epic Records, and the duo worked together on the artist’s 1994 debut. On the track ‘Honky Tonk Teachers’, Mellons thanked Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and Keith Whitley ‘for the lessons I’ve learned’. Mellons’ second single, ‘Jukebox Junkie’, burst into the US country Top 10, but this proved to be an isolated success as follow-up releases stalled outside the upper regions of the charts.

Mellons spent several months on the road opening for Billy Ray Cyrus but expectations for his second album proved to be over-inflated, with ‘Rub-A-Dubbin’’ the sole Top 40 success to be lifted from Where Forever Begins. Country legends John Anderson and George Jones offered vocal support on a classic honky-tonk song, ‘He’ll Never Be A Lawyer (‘Cause He Can’t Pass The Bar)’. Mellons subsequently parted company with Epic and, although he kept busy with live work and his fund-raising commitments, his recording career had largely stalled by the end of the decade due, in no small part, to record company politics. He finally released an album of new material in 2001, the misleadingly titled The Best Of Ken Mellons. The singer enjoyed more success in 2004 with the best album of his career so far, Sweet, released on the small independent label Home.

Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.