Joe Lee Swings On
Posted on 2023-05-12
Joe Lee, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, Sammy Creason, Danny Jones, Mike Overall, Alex Washam, Gretchen Hunt
So ... Joe Lee was band director at Trumann, Arkansas, when he was working with Scotty Moore and Bill Black at Fernwood. Joe also worked with a Jonesboro drummer, Sammy Creason. Sammy Creason played with the Bill Black Combo on the Beatles tour. Later Sammy played with Jerry Lee Lewis and Kris Kristofferson.
He died of an aneurism and I never got to meet him. I did meet his mother and his sister.
Joe also played with another Jonesboro drummer, Danny Jones, who I did get to meet and record. Danny Jones also has a storied career as a drummer, drum technician, and producer.
Mike Overall, another Jonesboro jazz drummer, stayed in Jonesboro and worked at the Jonesboro Sun, eventually becoming the editor. He wrote a music and culture column called Overall Comments for the Sun. I played with Mike Overall some and recorded him a lot. We got along pretty good but were never close like Joe and I were.
I worked with Joe on three albums and he gave me coproduction credits on "Joe Lee Swings On" and "Boppin' At The Forest". Vivian and I did the cover art for both of those albums.
There continues to be an enormous amount of drum talent in Jonesboro partly because of the strong jazz program at ASU. Alex Washam, the drummer in Bebop Beatniks, took his masters in percussion performance at ASU.
And my daughter, Gretchen Hunt, who used to drum with Hairy Larry and The Flying Hungarians, is now editor of the Jonesboro Sun.
Full circle.
Boppin At The Forest
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