We’ve received sad news from next of kin that on July 14th, guitarist Lee Underwood passed away, at 88. If you’re a fan of Lee’s music, his writing or his mind, you might have known -- or even sensed, from his work -- he was a heck of a guy, who made a serpentine course and path less traveled in his 88 years.

When we came a-knockin’ for his 1988 cassette-only California Sigh, just a few years ago, he was glad to hear from us, and if we thought it was a good idea making an LP out of it, he thought we should go ahead. Lee’s musical conception contributed powerfully to Tim Buckley’s astonishing songwriting revolution in the sixties and seventies. It is unfortunate he recorded only sparingly elsewhere, but this was by design. By the time that Buckley passed, after ups and downs of his own during the Love Generation, Lee felt inclined to remove himself back a bit and look at music from a different angle – as a writer. He functioned as such at Down Beat and other magazines throughout the 1980s, compiling a still-unpublished archive of interviews with other musicians. After that, Lee was inclined to remove himself even a bit more; he liked being closer to nature. When we met him, he was living in Petaluma, spending his octogenarian years publishing some poetry and a couple solo piano albums too. He was alone, a new widower grieving for his longtime partner Sonia, but he always tried to have something going on. He gave us notes on the California Sigh 1-sheet like an old-school jazz editor, and we appreciated it. Our brief experience with Lee was a pleasure -- we’ll miss his world and always remember it well.