Sad News: Blues Legend Mel Waiters Has Passed Away!

SAN ANTONIO – Popular R&B singer Mel Waiters died Thursday morning. He was 58.

Waiters grew up on the East Side at the East Terrace projects. He graduated from Highlands High School in 1974 but started playing music while in junior high in the Gotson Brothers Band. He was a singing drummer back then.

He had a long career at local radio stations. Waiters first job was at KEDA. Later, he was a popular on-air disc jockey at KAPE.

Waiters achieved success as a songwriter in the mid-1990s, penning such hits as “Hit It and Quit It,” “Hole in the Wall” and “Got My Whiskey.”

In 2013, Waiters told the San Antonio Express-News that he never forgot his first recording, “Do the Airplane,” recorded with the Gotson Brothers in the late ’70s. “People who knew me back then still request ‘Airplane’ to embarrass me,” he said.

Services are pending.