Friday To-Do: The Lee Boys
THE LEE BOYS
9 p.m., Sticky Fingerz. $10.
It's easy to forget the particular roots of the Lee Boys. That the band features the pedal steel, with all of its bent notes and riffs, certainly distinguishes it. But because of the band's tendency to latch onto a groove or a guitar solo, it's easy, too, to lump it into the jam band scene. A bluesier, rawer version of the Allman Brothers maybe. But in actuality, the band represents the fourth generation of a strange strain of gospel that came out of the House of God Church in southern Florida in the 1930s. One that borrows equally from the Hawaiian steel guitar tradition, the driving beat of the blues and the fervor of gospel. It's music the Lee Boys — that's Alvin Lee on guitar, Derek Lee and Keith Lee (vocals) and their nephews Roosevelt “The Doctor” Collier on pedal steel, Earl Walker on drums and Alvin Gordy on bass — learned from family. Uncles, brothers, grandfathers. In fact, the Lees grew up under the guidance of their preaching and steel-guitar-playing grandfather, Rev. Robert E. Lee. He taught them it was music to move your feet to.
9 p.m., Sticky Fingerz. $10.
It's easy to forget the particular roots of the Lee Boys. That the band features the pedal steel, with all of its bent notes and riffs, certainly distinguishes it. But because of the band's tendency to latch onto a groove or a guitar solo, it's easy, too, to lump it into the jam band scene. A bluesier, rawer version of the Allman Brothers maybe. But in actuality, the band represents the fourth generation of a strange strain of gospel that came out of the House of God Church in southern Florida in the 1930s. One that borrows equally from the Hawaiian steel guitar tradition, the driving beat of the blues and the fervor of gospel. It's music the Lee Boys — that's Alvin Lee on guitar, Derek Lee and Keith Lee (vocals) and their nephews Roosevelt “The Doctor” Collier on pedal steel, Earl Walker on drums and Alvin Gordy on bass — learned from family. Uncles, brothers, grandfathers. In fact, the Lees grew up under the guidance of their preaching and steel-guitar-playing grandfather, Rev. Robert E. Lee. He taught them it was music to move your feet to.
