A few words about my pal, Phil Lee, a Burrito who flew on to became 'The Mighty King of Love'

My good friend, Phil Lee, who fancies himself "The Mighty King of Love," is toiling for pounds and shillings right now in the United Kingdom.  And it is good luck for all the pub-hounds and house-partiers, as this guy is top-notch as a musician and as a human being. Here is a little piece I wrote to help out his cause and his goal -- to sell both of his new discs to "The Mighty King of England": King Charles. It also will give you a pretty good idea of whether you'd like his stuff. I'm pretty sure you would...................   

California’s Two-Man Wrecking Crew, like the almost-namesake flock of musicians who reigned over studios in L.A. during the last half of the 20^th Century, can play and produce whatever type of music desired on any particular day that Phil Lee shows up at David West’s Play Ball! Music Services studio in Santa Barbara.

“I’ll just write a song and tell David I think it’s ready, and he’ll tell me to come on down,” says Phil Lee, who lives just up the coast in Cayucos, California, where he can strum his guitar in the front yard and watch whales mate in the Pacific Ocean below his mountainside. Well, he really may not have watched them mate, but it certainly would be a fitting experience for the guy who often bills himself as “The Mighty King of Love” as he travels from house-party to concert stage to nightclub to studio in his converted van crammed with CDs, merch and a place he can sleep if he can’t find a friend’s couch or a safe neon lit motel along America’s Blue Highways.

The pairing of the two Pacific Coast Highway-based music veterans has yielded a pair of traditional and traditional-sounding country albums, Phil Lee & Other OId Time Favorites and When I Close My Eyes I See Blood.  

Phil Lee, a veteran California rock and roots hero, is known for his knife-throwing precision and audience-endearing dance moves when onstage.

In the studio with David, he offers up delicate guitar work to accompany his sometimes satiric, often ironic songs, traditional and original.  With a voice as at home and commanding in rock, gospel and stone-cold country, he offers up high-lonesome lament and Hank-style zest, sometimes flavored with a bit of Chuck Berry wordplay or with Crazy Horse-style rock ‘n’ roll.

A soft and soulful fellow when not throwing knives or peppering a crowd with his sometimes offbeat wordplay, he draws a somehow humble comparison between the work he does with David and the work of the legendary “Wrecking Crew,” a tight fraternity of world-class musicians who held court in Los Angeles’ studios decades ago.

That loosely affiliated group of L.A.-based musicians – including soon-to-be-stars Glen Campbell on guitar, Leon Russell on keyboards, Mac Rebennack (aka “Dr. John, The Night Tripper”) on piano and Sonny Bono on jingle bells and tambourine – were instrumental geniuses, often working with producer Phil Spector. They moved deftly from workaday pop backing with Frank Sinatra or The 5^th Dimension to providing the rich texture for Brian Wilson’s masterful Beach Boys opus Pet Sounds.

David West, who helped modern bluegrass ensemble the Cache Valley Drifters carry the Appalachian-birthed acoustic music sound across America and Europe 20 years or so ago now spends most of his time in the studio, where he constructed his own Wall of Sound for his teamings with Lee, who has used his guitar and voice with everyone from The Flying Burrito Brothers to Richard Bennett to Heartbreaker Howie Epstein to Billy Joe Royal to Crazy Horse.

The latter, best-known for playing with Neil Young, teamed up for Phil Lee & the Horse He Rode In On, which led to the pairing of West and Lee.

“I met Phil a couple of years ago working on the Crazy Horse record,” says West. “Since then I thought it would be interesting to hear his unique voice and songwriting skills turned loose in the fertile musical field of regional North America.”

If anyone has explored those fields, it’s West, who expanded on his expertise as bluegrass sideman and multi-instrumentalist to serve as producer for the massively successful “Pickin’ On” series, in which songs from Dylan to AC/DC to Kanye to Radiohead to Petty and beyond are given the bluegrass treatment. So far, more than 5 million copies from that collection have been sold.

Lee and West accomplish what they set out to do in both of these records, with their instruments lifting up vocals that capture the topics and the musical style of old-time era they salute.

While vocal master Lee can and does write many songs that make audiences laugh, this set of albums is not parody.  It’s honest music.   

Lee knows he and his pal in the Two-Man Wrecking Crew came up with something unique and yet familiar-sounding and endearing.  “It’s two guys who know what the fig they’re doing with the heart, soul, motor skills and the credentials to back it up.”