Birth name Melvin McClelland Role Singer | Labels Sunburst Records Record label Sunburst Records Name Melvin Bliss | |
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Born June 1, 1945 ( 1945-06-01 ) Years active 1973 (1973)–2010 (2010) Died July 26, 2010, Queens, New York City, New York, United States Similar People Skull Snaps, Herb Rooney, Dynamic Corvettes, Ultramagnetic MCs, The Winstons | ||
Acoustic hip hop melvin bliss on cajon trejon
Melvin McClelland (June 1, 1945-July 26, 2010) was a rhythm and blues singer known for his 1973 song "Reward/Synthetic Substitution", the B-Side of which was heavily sampled in at least 94 hip hop songs such as "Real Niggaz Don't Die" and Alwayz into Somethin' by N.W.A, O.G. Original Gangster by Ice-T, O.P.P. by Naughty by Nature and more recently "My Life" by 50 Cent, Eminem and Adam Levine.
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Born in 1945 in Chicago as Melvin McClelland, his career didn't begin with music; rather, in the Armed Forces. After spending a few years singing in Naval bands, he departed the Navy in the mid-1950s. From there, he went from stage to stage until the early 1970s, when in an attempt to boost his career prospects he visited a Queensbridge concert hall intending to use it for self-promotion. Whilst awaiting a meeting with the hall's owner, he encountered the mother of Herb Rooney and it emerged that he wanted a singer to record one of his compositions. After an informal discussion with Rooney himself, Bliss hit the studio to record it; the result was Reward. That song's B-Side, "Synthetic Substitution", became one of the most sampled songs of all time. Unfortunately, Bliss' label, Sunburst Records, was a sister company of Opal Productions, and in 1974 it went bankrupt, taking Sunburst Records with it; in doing so rendering Bliss a one-hit wonder.
In 2011, a documentary about him, Synthetic Substitution: The Life Story of Melvin Bliss, was released by Peripheral Enterprises. It was produced by Earl Holder.
Melvin bliss documentary trailer 1
Death
On July 17, 2010, it was announced by Melvin Bliss, Jr. that Bliss had suffered a heart attack and had been rushed to NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital. Just over a week later, on July 26, 2010, it was announced that Bliss had died.
