[6] Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician in Ohio,[6] and as a nightclub performer in the Niagara Falls, New York area.

[6] Street's last television appearance was in 1977, in which he performed his 1976 hit "I Met A Friend Of Yours Today" on That Good Ole Nashville Music.

Street recorded several hits in the mid-1970s, such as "You Make Me Feel More Like a Man," "Forbidden Angel," "I Met a Friend of Yours Today," "If I Had a Cheatin' Heart," and "Smokey Mountain Memories".

He signed with Mercury Records in 1978, but suffering from clinical depression and alcoholism,[6] he killed himself by a self-inflicted gunshot on October 21, 1978, his 45th birthday.

[6] His posthumous album, Mel Street's Greatest Hits, was promoted via television advertisements in 1981, and sold 400,000 copies.