Mel Bay's Guitar Sessions® Webzine | Stephen Rekas - Mel Bay Publications, Inc. 60 Years Old and Still Making Music

Cover Story

Mel Bay, in 1928 with his National Triolian guitar, his first "good" guitar.

Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
60 Years Old and Still Making Music
by Stephen Rekas

While we didn't trumpet it loudly, Mel Bay Publications has reached its 60th-year mile marker, and then some. It's not as if the anniversary has gone unheralded. The company offered a special anniversary concert and celebration at the Winter 2007 NAMM gathering in Anaheim, California. Both National Public Radio and Living St. Louis, a program on local PBS television, presented features on the anniversary, and the November issue of Music Inc. Magazine included Sara Farr's accurate summary of the company's education-based philosophy, business practices and a hint of the future. As we reach the end of 2007, it's time we used Guitar Sessions as a vehicle to blow our own horn. This is our 60th anniversary!

The early history of the company is fairly well known but I'll provide a quick summary nonetheless. I'll also include some information unique to this article.

Melbourne Bay was born in 1913 in Bunker, Missouri in the Ozark hill country. At the age of 13 he borrowed his first guitar and uke from his brothers, who had received them as Christmas gifts while Mel had to settle for the promise of an out-of-stock fiddle, He took up the tenor banjo soon afterward. Mel's musical heroes at that time were Eddie Lang and Roy Smeck, a fact later to be reflected in the mild jazz leanings in his method books.

While he had dreamt of a career in civil engineering, The Depression wiped out the family's finances and Mel's personal savings, so he was unable to attend college. In 1933 he set his sites on becoming a music teacher and performer in St. Louis where he was soon gigging nightly and teaching up to 100 students a week.

Among those students was May Gebelein, Mel's future wife. It would be May who would raise the couple's two children, ship Mel's books when the company was still a household industry literally run from the basement, and later manage the Mel Bay Music Center established in 1952 in Kirkwood, Missouri.

To hear Mel tell it, his publishing career began when he "noticed a niche that needed to be filled." I have a feeling it was a little more complicated than that. With his heavy student load, he quickly noticed the lack of guitar and banjo teaching aids and began writing his own lesson plans. With the shortage of guitar materials, some of Mel's early guitar studies were transcribed and adapted from clarinet literature.

After World War II, he was approached by representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish his ideas in book form so that returning GIs could be trained under the GI Bill for civilian jobs as musicians for the radio, television, film and entertainment industries. As his goal was to create complete, literate musicians who could function in live performance and studio situations, none of Mel's original books contained tablature.

Mel, with son Bill and grandson Matthew (one of his six grandsons), posing for a catalog shot.

Mel Bay's first book, The Orchestral Chord System for Guitar, was published in 1947 and is still in print under the title Rhythm Guitar Chord System (93214). Level 1 of the Modern Guitar Method (93200) soon followed. For many years, Mel traveled from town to town talking to music shop owners and guitar teachers and players and showing them his publications. His son William Bay, current president and editor-in-chief of Mel Bay Publications, recalls nothing but working vacations during this period.

At one point, Mel journeyed to New York City specifically to approach three leading publishers about distributing his books nationwide; all three turned him down because they didn't think the guitar had a future. Then in the late 50s, Elvis came into the building and overnight, the picture changed dramatically. To date, more than 6 million copies of the Modern Guitar Method have been sold and the series has recently undergone a transformation in its Expanded Editions.

Tommy Flint has been a Mel Bay Publications author for 35 years and has as many Mel Bay books to his credit, many of which feature companion CDs. In Part 1 of his 2002 Guitar Sessions® interview, he reflected on having swapped licks and rubbed elbows with some legendary guitarists, becoming a witness to early country music and fingerstyle guitar history in the process. In Part 2, I asked him to elaborate on his authorial relationship with Mel Bay Publications. The result is an accurate portrayal of the way Mel Bay conducted business at the time.

GS: Could you talk about how you got to know Mel Bay and your early experiences with Mel Bay Publications?
TF: In the mid-60s, Mel came to [Amos] Arthur's Music Store in Indianapolis where I was teaching. He was traveling around the country, getting to know all the people in the music retail business. For me, it was sort of like a miracle that I got that first book out at all. I still don't understand how I had such good luck. When I still lived in Kentucky, I learned to read music from books.

When I started teaching I used the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method. I went through all seven volumes. There was a lot of music theory in those books. I learned how to build chords in thirds and a lot of other things. I also learned a lot by reading and studying other theory books and by watching people and listening. It was all very helpful to me.

In Dayton, there were some great steel guitar players like Jimmy Murrah and Pete "Peedab" Mays who played a Telecaster. Harold Redfern was a great accordion player in the area. While they played in country bands, they would do pop and jazz ballads like Moonlight in Vermont, Tenderly, or Laura. I would hang out and listen or sometimes sit-in with them. Their music would challenge my ear more than most of the country material I was doing, and I began to understand jazz harmony.

I had already been teaching for quite a while when I met Mel. I started giving lessons in 1957 using materials I wrote in class that were tailored for each individual student. I sent out some samples to publishing companies, including Mel Bay Publications, Inc. My youngest son Patrick was born on Friday, August 13, 1971. When he was ten days old I decided to drive from Indianapolis to St. Louis to meet Mel Bay. I packed up my family of five into my Chevy Suburban and, on impulse really, we drove to St. Louis.

At that time Mel's office for his publishing company was located over his Kirkwood, Missouri store. We stayed at the local Holiday Inn. I called the store and learned that Mel was visiting his father in DeSoto, Missouri and wasn't expected back until around seven in the evening. Instead of calling a second time, I drove up there a little early and saw Mel climbing the stairs from the street level to his office. I went up with him and showed him what I had. He said, "I'm not interested. I got all this stuff here from Johnny Smith and George Van Eps."

He told me that what he really wanted was a bluegrass book so I played a little bit of "Wildwood Flower" for him, one of the few bluegrass tunes I knew. When I finished playing, Mel didn't say a thing to me. He just picked up the phone and called his son, Bill Bay and said, "I think we've found that bluegrass book we've been lookin' for." I was so excited. Bill came out to the office and we talked for a while. I must have run some red lights getting back to the motel to tell my wife that Mel had agreed to publish my book.

Mel had asked how long it would take to get it together. I said, "Two weeks." This is like another miracle. I'm not sure how I did that. I would start teaching at 3:00 p.m. and then play out every night. When I signed the contract, I wouldn't talk to anyone about it. I thought that if I bragged about it, God wouldn't let it happen.

Somehow I got it finished and drove the manuscript to St. Louis on Labor Day. Mel wasn't working that day but he said that he and Bill would meet me at the office. When that book was published in January of 1972, I was so excited. Bill sent some copies to me by special delivery and a big truck pulled up to the house.

I am grateful to be associated with Mel Bay Publications. It's a great company. I especially like it when I can call and speak directly with Bill. That means a lot. You can call some publishing companies and not be able to speak to an actual person. I really appreciate what Mel Bay Publications has done for me.

Tommy Flint's praise of Bill Bay is not overstated or misplaced. Bill Bay has been leading the publishing arm of the company since the construction of the Pacific, Missouri office, warehouse and printing facility in the late 60s. While Mel worked in his Kirkwood music shop and was the honorary president of Mel Bay Publications, Inc. until his death in 1997at the age of 84, it has been Bill's labor and vision that has driven the publishing arm of the company for the past 30 years.

As the author of more than 100 Mel Bay books himself, Bill has an intimate understanding of the challenges that confront our authors as well as the demands of the publishing industry. Our staff of dedicated professionals, state of the art presses, and even our entry into the digital age and the concept of the various Mel Bay Publications webzines- are all a part of Bill Bay's vision for the company.

I'm not allowed to disclose our plans for the immediate future yet, but I assure you that exciting times and numerous worthwhile publishing projects lie just ahead. We only hope for more of the success we've experienced in our first 60 years!

Best wishes in the New Year,
Stephen Rekas
Guitar Sessions Editor

National Public Radio- Interview with William Bay:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11843658

Living St. Louis; "The World's Most Famous Missourians" ; Ruth Ezell reporting for St. Louis PBS station:
http://www.ketc.org/productions/productions_livingSTL_videoArchive.asp#recent

Music Inc. Magazine; "Mel Bay's Next Phase" by Sara Farr; November 2007:
www.musicincmag.com/magazine.html