Founder

Mel Watson

Founder

photo: Stacy Wick

" In all my decades in the music biz,
I have not witnessed anyone who lives,
sleeps and breathes music anymore than her."

Don Bird
Artistic & Creative director/ Producer/
Production Manager, Toronto, Canada.

"Mel Watson plays a variety of horns and pours out vocals that seem to channel both
James Brown and Aretha Franklin"

Music is my life. From a very young age, I loved the feeling of inexpressible joy that came from playing and singing, and once I started on this journey, I wanted to know how to play everything. I wanted to be able to access that feeling through any instrument, to understand how music is created, and then go about creating it. This was a turning point, everything else disappeared, and I became a musician. So now at 40 years of age, I play a lot of instruments and am always looking to find others that help me to access this invisible joyful world. My music has been heard all over the place and I've received lots of Australian Music Awards for creative achievement in and around my former band Fruit, including 9 awards for 'Most Outstanding Instrumentalist' and 2 awards for my work to help raise awareness for animal cruelty with South Australian animal rights legend, Bev Luff. www.withcompassion.com.au

To me music can be a way to uplift the heart, it can be the close partner to all of the emotions that we,
as living beings, are capable of feeling.

I've written hundreds of songs, some of which have been heard on radio, in theater and television, and I have arranged and recorded countless parts for other songwriters and producers. As I mentioned earlier I play a lot of instruments including guitar, trumpet, saxophone, flute, tenor horn, baritone horn, bass guitar, and percussion and I have a very flexible voice that can at one moment blend, and the next, step forward and ignite.

Some of the more famous folks I have played with include Fruit, Michael Frante, ISSA (Jane Siberry), Cris Williamson, Catie Curtis, Erin McKeown, Bruce Cockburn, The Neville Brothers and Tommy Emmanuel, and then there is a myriad of not so famous, but equally amazing musicians that I have had the good fortune to play live and record with.

I continue to play live, mostly with The Wild Cellist, and I record my own material, while enjoying the great good fortune of playing for other songwriters and artists who need horns or vocals on their projects, or for producers who need music written especially for their project. With such a huge growth in independent music throughout the world, and with so many great artists creating wonderful music, I am overjoyed to be able to continue my own growth through collaborations with others using the internet. Through The Jingle Cafe and The Internet Horn Section I am able to play and record anything that may be needed for a musical project anywhere in the world, and if I can't do it ( I can't play the tabla or sitar quite yet :) I can find the right person for the job. I live in an amazing artists community on Whidbey Island, just North of Seattle, WA and I am in contact with countless professional musicians from all over the world.

It is a great time to be a musician!