Albert William Lee was born on 21 December 1943 and is an English guitarist known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique.
25 Facts About Albert Lee
2.
Albert Lee has maintained a solo career and is a noted composer and musical director.
3.
Albert Lee was born in Lingen, Herefordshire, but grew up in Blackheath, London, a member of a Romani family.
4.
Albert Lee's father was a musician, and Lee studied piano, taking up the instrument at age seven.
5.
Albert Lee took up guitar in 1958 when his parents bought him a second-hand Hofner President which he later traded in for a Czechoslovakian Jolana Grazioso, the forerunner of the Futurama.
6.
Albert Lee left school at the age of 16 to play full-time.
7.
Albert Lee first experienced commercial success as the lead guitarist with Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds.
8.
Albert Lee says that he enjoyed playing the Stax-type material, but he really wanted to play country music.
9.
In 1971, Albert Lee performed with Deep Purple's keyboard player Jon Lord on the studio recording of Lord's Gemini Suite.
10.
Albert Lee left for Los Angeles in 1974 and, through his friend bassist Ric Grech, did some session work on three albums with the Crickets who at the time included Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison.
11.
Albert Lee was responsible for the Everly Brothers' 1983 reunion concert and was its musical director.
12.
Albert Lee played regularly with the Everlys for over twenty years.
13.
In 1987, Albert Lee was invited by Gerry Hogan to headline at a steel guitar festival in Newbury, Berkshire.
14.
In 1988 Albert Lee toured Australia along with Vince Gill, then a comparative unknown, and has returned to tour the country on several subsequent occasions.
15.
In 2002, Albert Lee appeared at the Concert for George [Harrison].
16.
Also in 2002, Albert Lee received a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" from the CD Earl Scruggs and Friends.
17.
In September 2006 Albert Lee took part in Primal Twang: The Legacy of the Guitar, a documentary about the history of the guitar.
18.
Albert Lee appeared at the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival on 28 July and performed with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings at the Ahmet Ertegun tribute show at The O2 in London on 10 December.
19.
Albert Lee has received many awards as a guitarist, winning five consecutive times Guitar Player magazine's "Best Country Guitarist".
20.
Albert Lee is known within the music industry for his speed of playing and his technical virtuosity and yet by the same token, one of the most melodic, playing slower passages approximating the sound of the pedal steel guitar with his Music Man and Telecaster guitars which are equipped with B-Benders.
21.
Albert Lee is known as "the guitar player's guitar player".
22.
Albert Lee has been described by his peers, who include Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore, as a complete gentleman who does not know the meaning of the word ego.
23.
When Burton left to return to Elvis Presley, Albert Lee was his replacement.
24.
In 2017, Albert Lee was honoured with the Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Americana Awards.
25.
Albert Lee owns around 40 guitars, including Don Everly's Gibson J-200.