The wandering, singing ‘Mayor of Pollasky.’ Meet man behind Old Town Clovis music hub

Melvin Mason is giving an unofficial walking tour down Pollasky Avenue in Old Town Clovis.

He’s showing off all the places there are guitars stashed away for playing.

The one just off the front door at On The Edge coffee house could be mistaken as decor. It hangs on the wall alongside pictures that Mason put up of his old band and his favorite local guitarists; guys he’s played with and loves and promotes every chance he gets.

“Watch this.”

Mason pulls the guitar off the wall and approaches two guests sitting toward the back of the cafe.

“Do you want to hear a love song?”

Mason sings and thumb strums his way through the first verse of a mournful old country tune. He gets some applause and thank yous, then says his goodbyes. He puts the guitar back on the wall and heads back out onto Pollasky.

“I do this all the time,” he says.

“Every day.”

The Mayor of Pollasky

If he’s exaggerating, its not by much.

The 79-year-old retiree has been doing this often enough, and for long enough now, that he gets recognized. Among the musicians who perform in Old Town (both On the Edge and the restaurant Papa’s Place have popular music nights in part thanks to Mason), he’s known as “Cousin Mel.”

Or sometimes, the “Mayor of Pollasky,” after the avenue that runs through the heart of Old Town Clovis.

The Clovis Hall of Fame is giving Mason the Spirit of Clovis award at its annual banquet on Wednesday.

Still, there are the half-dozen or so acoustic guitars you can find hanging up along Pollasky Avenue, mostly because of Mason.

Along with the one at On the Edge, there are two more across the street at Scoops, Soups & More. There’s another down the street at Papa’s Place and one more at the recently opened Jeb’s Blueberry Hill.

The guitars aren’t just for the musicians who put them there, says Randy Carroll, a singer/guitarist whose Ovation acoustic is hanging up inside Scoops, Soups & More.

“They’re for anyone,” who sees them and wants to offer up a song, he says.

A sign hanging next to the guitars says as much.

Live music in Old Town Clovis

This makes for a kind of busker’s row in Old Town Clovis.

Anywhere you walk along Pollasky, there’s a chance you might hear some live music, Mason says. It’s similar in vibe, if not substance, to what he experienced playing on the streets of Santa Cruz.

There are the organized events.

On The Edge has music live music every weekend, which Mason traces back to the open mic night he hosted on the back patio a few years after the restaurant first opened. Papa’s Place brings in bands and musicians nightly, Tuesdays to Saturdays.

The guitars give access for the more impromptu meetings. Mason often shows up at a place and just starts playing. Sometimes, other musicians get invited and it becomes a jam session.

“This all because of Cousin Mel,” says Carroll, who joined Mason and several other musicians on the sidewalk outside Scoops, Soups & More on a recent morning. He plays his version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and by the time it gets to the chorus the assembled crowd is clapping and singing along.

Mason does renditions of Hank Snow’s “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” and Dave Dudley’s “Six Days on the Road.”

The latter is by request and is apropos. Mason used to drive truck. Cousin Mel (or Kuzzin Mel as it’s spelled out in Sharpie on his guitar) was his CB radio handle at the time.

Performing country classics

Mason down plays his own musical talents.

His guitar playing is serviceable, he says, and his voice has been better, though at one time he could sing Johnny Cash or Earnest Tubbs with the best of them. The bulk of his repertoire , a hundred or so songs, are the kind of country classics he and his wife performed at local retirement and senior care facilities for a decade or so.

Now, Mason is mostly done with performing. His voice isn’t what it once was and he doesn’t have the ambition to start learning a batch of new songs again.

But he still books performers, for the Saturday morning market on Pollasky Avenue, weekly performances at the Cherry Auction and whatever other gigs come his way.

“Where you’ve been and what you’ve done, that don’t mean a thing,” Mason says.

It’s all about what you can give to others, he says.

What Mason gives, is the opportunity for others to do the thing they love and make music.

“It probably brings me more joy that it does them.”

This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 5:30 AM.