BIO OF WRITER, COMPOSER MEL MAPP

Around the age of eight, Mel heard his grandmother singing beautiful songs as she went about her daily chores. She sang many beautiful melodies such as Patti Page's The Tennessee Waltz, Doris Day's Que Sera Sera, and Dean Martin's That's a More. It was due in part to his grandmother's calming voice that he became interested in music He would also hear the shopkeeper on the hill near his home playing songs on his antique cranked up Victrola record player and also hearing classical music of Strauss's family of waltzes like The Blue Danube piped in from the BBC in the UK on short wave radio feed through the local Re-diffusion box. But he can only conclude that this genre of music in Barbados was for the enjoyment of the many British ex-pats on the island. But he became a convert with that also calming sound. He is still a fan of the genre of music today as it was in his early years and tunes in to the CBC on weekdays and on Saturday afternoon for concerts.

There was only one off-on knob on the feed box with no tuning of any sort. This was before the age of twelve. Since there were no other choices, he listened to the classical music and still does only now listens on CBC Radio one FM. Mel, took his ferocious love of music to another level when he started writing his own song lyrics at the age of fifteen as an escape from boredom. He submitted many of those song lyrics to Song Writers Associates then located on Broadway in New York and others "songs wanted" places in Nashville. He knew nothing of copyrighting but loved the escape to dream it gave him. A visitor to the island, must have passed his name to a then unknown company at that time called ASCAP. This organization sent him a membership application but he had no money for postage and the application form was not sent.

But it was only after arriving in Canada, that he was further informed that ASCAP was a top music organization.It may have been a big opportunity missed, but he never gave up on his dream of writing songs. Mel met with Andy Anka father of the famous and talented Paul Anka writer of Frank Sinatra's hit "My Way" and the Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show theme. Andy told him that regardless where life takes him, he must never stop writing. Soon after that meeting, Mel joined BMI and is also an active member of SOCAN.

His dream of having a song recorded from all the many song lyrics written over the decades happened in two thousand and eighteen when one song "Another Sweet Sunday" was recorded at Dahmix studios in London featuring Alicia Faulkner, a student at Fanshawe College in London and the second other songs he wrote and recorded "My Old Tamarind Tree", "Conga Bay Cabaret", and "Dawn Dari" in 2019. His latest creative works were the lyrics to "My Moonshine Bro" in collaboration with Nashville Song Service. in June of 2020, he finally made it to Nashville when "My Moonshine Bro" was selected, accepted, and recorded on September 4, 2020 and "Thank You Nashville". As a thank you, Rachel Cristaldi coordinator of Nashville Song Service who took interests in his lyrics. This was surreal, since many of his song lyrics were submitted to other Nashville studios many decades ago but with no acknowledgement of having any being received.