From sevush@rcn.com Tue Nov 05 07:22:33 2002
Subject:OT Lee Michaels (cont...)

I was heavily influenced by Lee Michael's playing. I am not as in awe,
having matured a bit, but he and Jerry Lee Lewis were my role models for
aggressive keyboarding.

From the AMG:

One of the most interesting second-division California psychedelic
musicians, keyboardist Lee Michaels was one of the most soulful white
vocalists of the late '60s and early '70s. Between 1968 and 1972, he
released half a dozen accomplished albums on A&M that encompassed Baroque
psychedelic pop and gritty white, sometimes gospel-ish R&B with equal
facility. A capable songwriter, Michaels was blessed with an astonishing
upper range, occasionally letting loose some thrilling funky wails. In 1971,
he landed a surprise Top Ten single with "Do You Know What I Mean," one of
the best and funkiest AM hits of the early '70s.
But Michaels was really much more of an album-oriented artist, from the time
he began recording in the late '60s. Michaels started playing music in
Southern California, where he was in a band with future members of Moby
Grape, the Turtles, and Canned Heat. By the time he signed to A&M, however,
he'd moved to San Francisco, joining the management stable of Matthew Katz
(which also included, at various times, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and
It's a Beautiful Day). Michaels was unusual for a San Francisco act in that
he relied mostly on an organ-based sound, especially after the first pair of
albums, when for a time he played, live and in the studio, with the mammoth
drummer "Frosty" as his only accompanist.

"Do You Know What I Mean," ironically, was a throwaway tune that Michaels
wrote hurriedly. Though Lee himself didn't think much of it, the song was a
first-rate blast of white boy soul; around this time, the gospel influence
that had often informed his sound come to the fore. His albums in the
mid-'70s for Columbia, however, were both critical and commercial
disappointments. Michaels moved to Hawaii for an extended retirement from
the music business; aside from a self-released album in the early '80s,
little's been heard from him since. - Richie Unterberger