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I knew John Lee

Jeffrey Reid | Planet Earth | 12/31/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...and I was there. Well, actually the week before in downtown San Jose at a little joint called te Eulipa Cafe.John was there, so was the other John, John Garcia of Gilroy, wringing the hell out of the guitar. The drummer was a mountain of a man. (About ten years later John Lee and Buddy Miles played at a little deli in Campbell. John Lee sat at our table, we talked awhile, but I digress)Anyway, when I saw John in 77 it was a week before this Palo Alto show...It is the Cream.Listen to that Bar Room Drinking. I've been there. That little bar, where real men are saddled up on their stools with their shot glasses. Their eyes squint when the door opens and lets in the sunlight cause its serious afternoon bar room drinking, drinking to forget, drinking away those blues...I originally found this recording in Germany in 1980 in a little shop outside Kirch Goens US Army Post...I still play it...Ten years after first seeing John Lee, my buddy and I did a documentary with John. We recorded a show in San Francisco...Maybe one day we will release it, who knows..I remember what John Lee told me one day when sitting on his couch in his modest Redwood Shores home. Said John Lee, "The Blues was born when woman was born."But in the meantime, enjoy this recording cause its truly The Cream."