Mel Hague is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

.

Early life

Hague's parents realised something was wrong with their son when he was 12 months old and still unable to sit up unaided. After visiting many specialists he was diagnosed with "infantile paralysis" though his condition is now known to be Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy

Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....

. With the help of a toy railway engine made by his father, Hague learned to walk when he was three and half years old.

At nine years of age, Hague went to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 with his parents where he received treatment at the Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

's Hospital for Sick Children

Hospital for Sick Children

The Hospital for Sick Children – is a major paediatric centre for the Greater Toronto Area, serving patients up to age 18. Located on University Avenue in Downtown Toronto, SickKids is part of the city’s Discovery District, a critical mass of scientists and entrepreneurs who are focused on...

. The treatment was not successful and the family returned to England after two and half years. Unable to settle they returned to Canada where they lived for about six years.

In his teens, while at school in Oakville, Ontario

Oakville, Ontario

Oakville is a town in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario, Canada, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area. As of the 2006 census the population was 165,613.-History:In 1793, Dundas Street was surveyed for a military road...

, Hague took part in and won a mock election to "replace" the local mayor. It was at this time he discovered an ability to entertain people. Another achievement while in Canada was when Hague's father taught him to drive.

Music career

On his return to England at the age of 18, Hague soon started singing with various bands. At this stage it was mostly rock'n'roll with some country and western. He decided that the latter was his main interest. In 1964 he formed his own country trio called The Westernaires. In 1966 Hague turned professional, made his first recording, called "Mule Train", and married Ivy. They now have two children.

"Mule Train" carried three tracks: the title song, a Hank Williams song and a self-penned song called "Don't Say a Word". Since then Hague has made 15 albums and a video. He has won numerous music and song writing awards at both club and national level. His most important award was as Country Music Entertainer of the Year in the 1981 Aria

Aria

An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

/Daily Mirror Golden Guitar Awards.

In his act he covered Hank Williams, Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, Jim Reeves

Jim Reeves

James Travis Reeves , better known as Jim Reeves, was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well-known for being a practitioner of the Nashville sound...

, Don Williams

Don Williams

Don Williams , is an American country singer, songwriter and a 2010 inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He grew up in Portland, Texas, and graduated in 1958 from Gregory-Portland High School. After seven years with the folk-pop group Pozo-Seco Singers, he began his solo career in 1971,...

, Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings

Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...

, Bobby Bare

Bobby Bare

Robert Joseph Bare is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is the father of Bobby Bare, Jr., also a musician.-Early career:...

, Randy Travis

Randy Travis

Randy Travis is an American country music singer and actor. Since 1985, he has recorded 20 studio albums and charted more than 30 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, 22 of which were number one hits...

, Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson

Alan Eugene Jackson is an American country music singer, known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 13 studio albums, 3 Greatest Hits albums, 2 Holiday albums, 1 Gospel album and several compilations, all on the Arista...

, Confederate Railroad

Confederate Railroad

Confederate Railroad is an American country rock band founded in 1987 in Marietta, Georgia by Danny Shirley , Michael Lamb , Mark Dufresne , Chris McDaniel , Warren "Gates" Nichols and Wayne Secrest...

, The Tractors

The Tractors

The Tractors is an American country rock band composed of a loosely associated group of musicians, headed by guitarist Steve Ripley. Under the band's original lineup, The Tractors was signed to Arista Records in 1994, releasing their self-titled debut album that year; the album went on to become...

 and The Mavericks

The Mavericks

The Mavericks is a country music band founded in 1989 in Miami, Florida, United States. Between 1991 and 2003 they recorded six studio albums, in addition to charting 14 singles on the Billboard country charts...

.

Hague's last public performance was on 9 July 2004. He was suffering from pain through the gig and in the following days things got worse. He was diagnosed as having a problem with four of his intervertebral disc

Intervertebral disc

Intervertebral discs lie between adjacent vertebrae in the spine. Each disc forms a cartilaginous joint to allow slight movement of the vertebrae, and acts as a ligament to hold the vertebrae together.-Structure:...

s. He was told that it would be a long road to recovery, so he decided to retire from musical performance. Doctors were not confident that he would walk again given his Cerebral Palsy, but he has made significant progress and is now able to get around using walking sticks.

Writing and Broadcasting

Hague spent ten years with BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Radio Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

 presenting a weekly one-hour country music programme. He was with Great Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

Radio for a year, presenting a weekly three-hour show.

Hague is also a journalist He does an occasional piece for Country Music Round Up, a weekly column for the South Yorkshire Times which ran for two years, and CD and book reviews for The New Entertainer in Doncaster as well as a fortnightly column for the Doncaster Free Press. He also writes book reviews for The Goole Courier, and CD reviews for Traditional Music Maker and Country Music & Dance in Scotland along with X Country.

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".

External links

• Mel Hague Official Website
• Paul Mould Publishing - Hague's publisher