Bobby Lee's "Stella" Is Amazing

Full disclosure: Bobby Lee is my dear old dad. My *gaffer, as Samwise would say. So I've been hearing him play my whole life. But this is by far my favorite **album of his. It's a culmination of decades of experience and creativity, practice and patience, and yet it is as raw and fresh as a cold swim in a wild lake at dawn.  It's a blues album, mostly. The gaffer knows his stuff, and now he's having fun with it, to our delight.

Take a listen here. 



*Sources here at Mindless Minion Headquarters tell me that "gaffer" actually refers to Samwise Gamgee's grandfather. But I maintain that Bob is a grandfather, now, so he's still a gaffer.

**There is no pedal steel on this album. This European Steel Guitar Hall of Famer is just playing his acoustic lap steel, whose name is Stella. (It's an awkward title, "European Steel Guitar Hall of Famer," but nevertheless true. The European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame is right next door to the European Bassoon Hall of Fame, and across the street from the European Banjo Hall of Fame. (The rumors about shotguns being fired and volleys of molotov cocktails going back and forth across the street between the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and the European Banjo Hall of Fame have been greatly exaggerated.)

***Actually, I just made up that whole part about the European Banjo Hall of Fame and the European Bassoon Hall of Fame. The bit about my gaffer being in the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, though? Totally true. It totally exists. He's totally in.

*****Except that Bobby Lee actually has never been there, to the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. I mean, he's in it, as in he's represented in some imaginary or tangible form, but his actual bodily self? Never been to Europe.

******Stella is a Harmony. He gave me his other Harmony guitar, the Harmony Rocket, which I treasure:

Bodkay is listening.




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