1.Boogie Twist
2.Rock This Joint
3.44 Blues
4.Rooster Blues
5.Call Me
6.She Fooled Me
7.Get Your Mind Out Of The Gutter
8.I Been Abused
9.Everybody Loves My Baby
10.Train Fare
11.I'm Gonna Love You
12.Keep What You Got

Lee McBee - Harmonica, Vocals
Anson Funderburgh - Guitar
Marvin Hunt - Guitar
Kevin McKendree - Piano
Kid Ramos - Guitar

I've listened to harp players and singers for forty years, and many of the great ones have passed on. Some of my favorites are Little Walter, Sonny Boy (Rice Miller), and George Smith. Fantastic players who are still kicking are Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza, Sugar Blue, and many others, too numerous to mention. I first heard Lee McBee on some of the Black Top blues compilation cd's (I bought 'em because they were about $5 each, in the bargain bin).

In my opinion, Lee McBee is the best combination singer/harp player alive.

It seems like it's real tough to excel at both. For example, Little Walter: a technically brilliant and fantastically innovative harp player, but just an OK singer with a fairly nondescript voice. Same with Rod Piazza: THE greatest living harp player, but with a "white" voice. To me a great blues singer needs to sound--not to be racist--"black". His voice must be somewhat rough, tough, "lived in", maybe somewhat gravelly or clotted. Not too thin or high. You either have it or you don't: it's tough to develop it (example: 17-year old Stevie Winwood with the Spencer Davis Group way back in the sixties: we all thought he was black!).

Harpists aside, to me the best singers are people who sound like they have lived the blues: Omar of the Howlers, Wilson Pickett, Buddy Guy, Greg Allman, Delbert McClinton. That's just me.

Lee McBee is right up there with all of the others. He has that kind of voice, with a real nice kind of Texas twang to it. He can blow the lid off the joint with his harp. I cannot understand why he is not more recognized. He is absolutely fantastic. Listen to anything you can find from him. There are plenty of good sides with Mike Morgan and the Crawl. But it's real easy to see that the best tunes on those disks are the ones featuring Lee's singing and his amplified harp, the basic shuffle blues, nothing fancy.

In this album, he is up front on all the songs, and the record is that much stronger for it. ---Elmore Jaimz, amazon.com

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1.    Ride With Me
2.    It's Your Voodoo Workin'
3.    Just A Feelin'
4.    Twelve Hours From You
5.    Woman Down In Arkansas
6.    Soul Deep
7.    Country Blues II
8.    Gonna Find My Baby
9.    I Don't Understand
10.    Your Turn To Cry
11.    Mohair Sam
12.    Walk

Lee McBee – Harmonica, Vocals
John Bradley - Bass
Hash Brown - Guitar
Kaz Kazanoff - Saxophone
Jon Moeller - Guitar
Jimmy Shortell - Trumpet
Wes Starr - Drums, Percussion
Gene Taylor - Organ, Piano
Cynthia Manley, Jessica Williams - Vocals (Background)

How many blues singers you know? I mean: “real” blues singers? And how many blue-eyed guys do fit into that category? Five? Or maybe ten?

Whoever you are naming, Lee McBee should be a member of that exclusive club. The man with the particularly soulful and smoky voice, long-time partner of Texas blues guitarist, Mike Morgan has done it again!

He's surprising the blues community with another GRE AT record. The musicians were hand-picked in the Dallas area; the recordings were made at Billy Horton's famous 'Fort Horton Studio' near, Austin, Texas. Recorded the old way, live with all guys playing in one room, at the same time. Johnny Moeller is playing guitar with Kim Wilson in his current Fabulous Thunderbirds line-up.

Lee knows how to sing the blues. His repertoire includes rural styles as well as big city soul. He is ranking amongst CrossCut's most favorite white singers. His only album on our label is a moving and thrilling example of contemporary blue-eyed blues and soul. A well-balanced mixture of originals and covers, performed with energy and passion. Traditional style blues at its very best, rough and dirty. Never a slick moment. --- crosscut.de

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