A Portrait of Jeannie

Meet `Jeannie'
Lyrics & Music by Mel Webb (c)

Mel sent me a huge amount of data from which I was asked to pick whatever information I needed for a short bio. In addition to being an accomplished musician, Mel is a raconteur sans pareil and the anecdotes about some of his wartime experiences while serving in the Navy were a delight to read. Unfortunately, for the purpose at hand, I must stick to 'music-related' data. Perhaps one day Mel will decide to write his memoirs, at which time I would be first in line to buy the book.

Mel was born in a town named South Pasadena, Calif. 68 years ago. His brother got him interested in computers about 6 years ago, and Mel drifted into making music with his first Atari computer. His notes said that he was not musically talented but I beg to differ on that opinion. His love of music however has kept him close to it. Although hard to believe, given his Midi compositions, Mel doesnn't play any instrument, nor does he know how to read music. He taught himself at home how to operate a computer, and later how to put midi files together.

His present equipment consists of a Micron Pentium Millennia 133. It also has a 1.6 gig HD, a 6X CD player, a combination 5.25" & 3.5" floppy drive, and about 1 month ago he installed a 100 mgb internal Zip drive. Hooked up to this computer is a Hewlitt Packard 855C color printer, a Relysis Infinity 32 bit scanner, and in the music dept. he has an Ensoniq SQ2 keyboard, a Roland external SC-155 Sound Canvas, a Roland RA-50 Realtime arranger, a Roland U110 sound module, a KMX 8x8 midi patch bay, and a DOD series ll graphic stereo equalizer, and ( phew! ) a Roland stereo 16 channel mixer. And of course all of this is funneled into a Kenwood 100 watt stereo surround sound system, for some beautiful playback sounds.

I feel privileged and honored to count Mel as my cyberfriend and I thank him for having so kindly agreed to contribute to this album. He is also featured in various Concerts in the Park.

God bless you Mel.

Mel's Homepage
You may also hear several selections from Mel's repertoire featured at the Smick and Smodoo's homepage.

Sincere thanks to Windy's World for the beautiful musical graphics