It was in the late 1980s and, as usual on a weekend night, I was at Mishawaka, Indiana’s Center Street Blues Café to check out yet another blues show.  The club was a spacious venue, with a separate bar area that led down into a cavernous performing space that included a large elevated stage with superior sound and lighting systems, including a formal sound mixing board.  The stage was certainly capable of accommodating even the largest bands.  The room itself had a distinct dance floor, and chairs and tables to accommodate easily 150 people.  A steep stairway led upward to a mezzanine level with tables and chairs that easily held another forty or so people.  With its proximity only 90 miles east of Chicago, the club definitely saw its share on Windy City blues artists play the spot, in addition to national touring blues acts such as Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets with Sam Myers, Luther Allison, Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters, and Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson, among many others.  Local and regional acts also called the club home.

For the life of me, I cannot remember who the headlining artist was on this particular evening.  I left the club for a short while as I spoke to friends outdoors, and when I made my way back inside the band was all set-up and ready to play.  I was seated at my usual table straight out from the stage, perhaps twenty feet away, close to the sound mixing board.  As the music started, I looked up to see a man seated at an electric piano with a vibrant red and white outfit on, one that included a stylishly coordinating cap with a longer brim made of what looked to be shiny white leather.  But it wasn’t the man’s clothes or even his Harry Caray-ish large black-rimmed glasses that caught my eye.  No, it was his large, and I mean large smile, one that showed-off his big white teeth.  And the thing was, to this day I don’t believe this was part of his stage schtick he forced upon himself once he took the stage.  No, it was very obvious that this highly talented keyboard man was truly enjoying himself.  His position at the at stage left at the front of the performing space made his outward glee all the more obvious to all in the club.  His smile was infectious to all.  And when he played and sang, he likewise effused a buoyancy that endeared himself to the audience.

This was the first time I had ever seen Lovie Lee “live,” and the impression he made upon me still makes me smile.

He came into the world as Eddie (some research indicates Edward) Lee Watson in mid-March 1909 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, though he spent his formative years in Meridien, Mississippi, a locale that is the county seat of Lauderdale County, an area in the far east central portion of the state. 

Yet again, not a lot of detail is known about Lee’s earliest years, though it is generally accepted that he was a self-taught piano player, and once he realized he had more than a modicum of talent, he began to ply his musical trade wherever and whenever he could, including in local houses of worship, at the numerous vaudeville shows that were common in his time, along with the nearby frolics, picnics, and rodeos that were common during that period.

Before going any further, taking on the name “Lovie” must be addressed, because, let’s face it, for a man to accept that moniker and use it for the rest of his performing days indicates that it must’ve been bestowed by someone who meant a lot to him.  And sure enough, Lee acquired the nickname from an aunt who was said to have been very adoring of him.

Lee continued to perform on a regular basis while holding down a manual day job.  By the time he was in his very early forties, he was playing piano in a band named the Swinging Cats, one that included a young harmonica player by the name of Carey Bell Harrington (the eventual Chicago blues harmonica giant Carey Bell).  Bell was only 13 years of age when Lee met him and began to perform with him, and with a paternal watchful eye he took the young Bell Harrington under his wing and mentorship.  In many respects, Lee became an adoptive father to Bell Harrington.

1956 was a major year for Lee (and Bell Harrington, too).  The two made a huge decision to move to Chicago to seek better opportunities for their blues skill sets.  Once in Chicago, Lee established himself in a steady day job, while in the evenings he set off into the maze of the city’s blues clubs and joints to make alliances and launch his blues keyboard career.  In time, Lee’s great piano proficiencies earned him respect throughout Chicago’s tough blues scene, one where respect does not come easily.  But his playing and singing earned him a notably high status.

While continuing to work a day job as an upholsterer, Lee eventually put together a band named The Sensationals.  He kept this group together all the while he was employed in his day occupation.

Upon formally retiring from his day job, the opportunity to join The Muddy Waters Blues Band presented itself with the departure of Pinetop Perkins.  The decision by Waters to inquire about the availability of Lee came about by Waters’ harmonica player George “Mojo” Buford who had previously found Lee to be a strong keyboard player when the two performed together years earlier.

Lee’s position in Waters’ final band provided him the ability to tour and earn a decent wage from being in a higher profile act, and he was with Waters until his death in in 1983. 

Now retired and without a steady blues gig, Lee was once again available to offer his services across the Chicago blues scene to whoever needed a top-notch piano player.  Now having been on the Chicago blues circuit for almost 30 years, and having established a decidedly solid musical reputation and a bit of visibility with Waters, Lee’s reality was that he was truly hardly a known commodity outside of Chicago. 

Lee continued to play the Chicago clubs, and sometimes ventured into the nearby Midwestern venues on short tours, but his strength as a reliable steady piano man served him best on the Chicago club circuit.  Due to his genial nature and genuine delight in playing in front of audiences, those qualities seemed to carry him along in the blues realm, and life in general.

In a span encompassing six years from 1984-1989, Lee privately recorded some tracks, and those cuts and some additional ones that included Carey Bell (from 1992) were released on the exceptional CD entitled Good Candy, a collection made available in 1994 on the Earwig Music label.  The entire lineup on this CD’s tunes was broad due to the elongated timeframe of the recordings, but they included Carey Bell and his son Steve Bell on harmonica, Earl Howell and Odie Payne, Jr. on drums, Eddie Taylor, Lurrie Bell (Carey’s son), and Vance Kelly on guitar, along with a host of other horn players, bassists, and drummers.  Lee’s 15 cuts found him to have the zest and energy of a man many years younger, singing and playing piano with great poise, style, and enthusiasm.  His protégé, Carey Bell, brought much to the table, as if he gave it even more than his usual superb effort in acknowledgement of the man who showed him care throughout his life.

Unfortunately, despite its high musical marks, Good Candy did little to further Lee’s career, and by 1994, he was 85 years of age. 

Lee passed away in late May, 1997.

As is often noted in these pages, Chicago was so packed with blues talent at one time that even a true talent like Lee could not achieve a higher ranking.  So many names of blues artists immediately come to mind that it is startling.  Lee was a man with a confirmable blues skill set so lofty that, like so many others, even he could not reach a higher stratum of recognition and appreciation.

All that said, in that Mishawaka, Indiana club on that Saturday night in the late 1980s, there sat a joyous professional blues piano player and singer, nattily attired with a substantial ear-to-ear smile, whose mere presence alone brought happiness to the assembled crowd, and when coupled with his extensive skill set, it remains all these years later a night remembered fondly.