Many listeners tend to dismiss organist Lenny Dee (1923-2006) as a purveyor of bland easy listening. It's true that most of his albums from the late 1960s on tend to fall into that category. But his detractors probably aren't familiar with his early recordings for Decca, with whom he signed in 1954.
Dee's early LPs are laced with vintage boogie-woogie, swing and jazz tunes. For instance, his first album Dee-lightful! (1954) contains versions of Birth of the Blues, Little Brown Jug and Sweet Georgia Brown. It also includes his own Plantation Boogie, which made the Top 20 in 1955. Dee wrote the song in honor of the Plantation Inn in Nashville, where singer Red Foley had heard the organist playing and recommended that Decca sign him.
Dee's second LP, Dee-lirious! (1956) includes Chinatown, My Chinatown, Caravan and Twelfth Street Rag. And from the third, Dee-licious!, also released in '56, comes Honky Tonk Train Blues, the famous boogie-woogie from pianist Meade (Lux) Lewis.
Honky Tonk Train Blues
Many of Lenny Dee's early Decca tracks have been released on a pair of double-CD releases from the U.K.-based label Jasmine, Double Dee-Light and Lenny Dee in Dee-mand. Don't pay the inflated prices on eBay and Amazon. Used copies of both can be had for less than $5 from independent sellers on Amazon and elsewhere.
As well, a lot of Dee's vinyl LPs, including the early ones, still turn up frequently in thrift stores and bargain bins at record stores.
To close, here's Dee's only significant chart entry, Plantation Boogie.
decent boogie woogie style organ solo by this popular organist from the fifties and sixties. I like his upbeat swingin style!
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