Over the many decades Albert Lee has been strapping on an axe, he’s earned the nickname Mr. Telecaster.
As one of England’s pre-eminent country-rock guitarists, Lee has been plugging in with his trusty Fender as a member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, doing a five-year stint as a sidemember for Eric Clapton and as a musical director for more than 20 years with his heroes, The Everly Brothers, a stint that started with the duo’s 1983 reunion concert.
While most 80-somethings would be perfectly content kicking back in retirement and talking about the glory days, this affable Brit is instead out on the road. Lee will perform with the Sonoma Shakers at the Cookout Concert Series, presented by KC Turner, Saturday, Sept. 19, at HopMonk Tavern Novato’s Outdoor Venue.
Guitarist Lee has been promoting “Lay It Down,” his most studio offering. And while this session yielded a beautifully played collection of varied covers that are a nod to a number of his heroes, including The Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin and the Flying Burrito Brothers, he’ll be the first to say he’d rather be playing live, even while grappling with certain age-related issues.
“The guy who books me in England said we needed new music for the next tour,” Lee explained. “I have to be forced to do these things. Everybody was saying we’ve got to do this, so we booked Konk, the Kinks’ studio. My feeling was, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to find songs.’ But it turned out really well considering the time it was done. I’m really happy to have it out there.”
“I found some old photographs where I don’t look quite so old. But it’s been a bit of a struggle for me because not having played before heading out on this tour, I lost the calluses on my fingers. I’m 82 now, so the skin gets kind of thin in your 80s. It’s taken a while to build them up,” he continued.
Calluses or not, Lee’s two days in the studio found him digging deep into a lot of in-concert favorites. Highlights range from “Setting Me Up,” a rollicking reading of a Dire Straits gem that originally came out on the band’s 1978 self-titled debut, and a countrypolitan-kissed walk through the Chris Hillman/Gram Parsons classic “Wheels” to a sweeping cover of Jimmy Webb’s “Too Young to Die.”
An unabashed song interpreter, Lee admitted he hasn’t written any songs lately. “We just booked some studio time, went in for a couple of days and knocked out a few tracks,” he said. “These are songs it’s taken me a few years to get around to learning. And a good lot of them are ones we’ve been doing on stage.”
Lee’s unusual career path started when he was a young boy whose heroes were a number of early 1950s pop stars including Johnnie Ray, Doris Day and Guy Mitchell. But it took skiffle icon Lonnie Donegan and his driving interpretations of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs to inspire the aspiring musician to pick up a guitar. By 1960, he was playing on his first tour. But it was country picker Jimmy Bryant and legendary fret-person James Burton that sparked the nascent guitarist to begin a lifelong love affair with the Telecaster.
“Jimmy Bryant had a crazy swing/country style, and I could tell he was playing a Telecaster,” Lee recalled. “Around that time, I’d become a huge fan of James Burton with Ricky Nelson, and James was playing a Telecaster too. By 1963, I found a second-hand Telecaster, and that changed my life completely.”
By the late ’60s, Lee went from being the lead guitarist for Chris Farlowe’s early rock and roll-influenced Thunderbirds to playing country music at U.S. Army and Air Force bases around the United Kingdom. At the same time, he saw the six-string trinity of Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck blowing up commercially. And while he was having second thoughts about continuing down this particular country music path, he was asked to join Head Hands & Feet, a British outfit considered to be Britain’s answer to the Flying Burrito Brothers.
“I think we were influenced by people like Jimmy Webb, because there were two main writers in the band, [Ray Smith and Tony Colton], and they did some country songs,” Lee said. “At that time, we were influenced by The Band as well.”
“What was good about Head Hands & Feet is they forced me into playing piano more, which was interesting because as a kid, I was lazy, and I remember my piano teachers telling my parents they were wasting their time because I wasn’t practicing between lessons. But I’ve been an avid pianist since my time in Head Hands & Feet. I’m grateful for my time in that band because it was a good introduction to America for me,” he added.
Lee’s reputation in Head Hands & Feet served him well. Not only did he resettle in Southern California once the band broke up, but his new environs gave him opportunities to connect with future employers like The Everly Brothers and Harris. Ironically, his opportunity with the latter found him replacing his hero Burton, who was leaving to play with Elvis Presley.
“I’d first met The Everly Brothers in ’62 or ’63 and got really friendly with their guitar player, Don Peake, who is still a dear friend of mine,” Lee said. “By the time I got to L.A. the first time, Phil Everly came out to see Head Hands & Feet. After my group broke up in ’73, I was living in Los Angeles. A friend of mine called to say Don was playing at a local bar near where I was living. He told me to come on out because it was a great band, and Don was leading it. I took my guitar out to this small bar, and Don loved what I was doing.”
He continued, “The real turning point for me (was) when I went to see Emmylou play this one gig down in Laguna Hills by the beach around ’74 or ’75. She asked what I was doing for the next couple of weeks and said, ‘Albert, we need you,’ because James was off to play with Elvis.”
Fast forward to the present, and Lee has no intention of slowing down, calluses or lack thereof be damned. It jibes well with his mindset of using it so as not to lose it.
“I’m 82 now, so I’m fortunate to still have the gigs out there,” he said. “It’s getting harder, but I’ll keep doing it. It’s like what I tell young musicians: ‘Don’t do all your practicing in your bedroom. Get out there and play with other musicians. That’s when you really learn something.’ It proved well for me.”
Albert Lee and the Sonoma Shakers perform at the Cookout Concert Series, presented by KC Turner, with doors opening at 4:30pm, show at 6pm, Saturday, Sept. 19, at HopMonk Tavern Novato’s Outdoor Venue, 224 Vintage Way.
