Albert Lee

Albert Lee occupies an odd niche in music -- British by birth and upbringing, he spent the mid-'60s as a top R&B guitarist, but in the 1970s became one of the top rockabilly guitarists in the world, and no slouch in country music either. In England he's a been household name, and in Nashville and Los Angeles he's been one of the most in-demand session guitarists there is; but outside of professional music circles in America, he's one of those vaguely recognizable names, and occasionally misidentified with his similar-sounding contemporary, ex-Ten Years After guitarist Alvin Lee (with whom he did share a berth once, in Jerry Lee Lewis's band on the latter's London Sessions album) -- but where Alvin was a hero of Woodstock and a flashy guitarist, in the manner of British blues extroverts Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, Albert is much more likely to be found playing in the background, behind the Everly Brothers or alongside Eric Clapton. Lee was born in Leominster, England, in 1943. His introduction to music came from his father, who played piano and accordion. His first instrument was the piano, which he took up at age seven -- he was lucky enough to be more than five years into his keyboard study when rock & roll came along, and his first idol was Jerry Lee Lewis, which also marked his introduction to rockabilly music. Within a couple of years, however, Lee had switched to guitar, and also discovered the music of Buddy Holly & the Crickets. He started learning the guitar in earnest and studying their records very closely, and not long after graduated from an acoustic to an electric instrument, and was learning the lead guitar parts on records by Holly, Gene Vincent, Ricky Nelson, the Louvin Brothers, and the Everly Brothers -- except that to him they were just as much records...