Biography
Back when rock & roll first exploded from roadside joints and neighborhood clubs onto national radio, the saxophone stood alongside guitar, piano, and drums as a defining element of the music. While a handful of horn players such as Rudy Pompili achieved genuine stardom and widespread recognition, others like Jimmy Wright—George Goldner’s resident reedman and bandleader across several labels—came close to that level without ever securing it. Positioned squarely between those two trajectories, Lee Allen contributed to dozens of hit records and hundreds of additional sides for artists ranging from Fats Domino to Lloyd Price and Little Richard, yet he never established a sustained presence on the charts under his own name. During those attempts, however, he produced one of the most admired instrumental albums to emerge from the 1950s New Orleans R&B scene.
Born in 1927 in Pittsburg, Kansas—though some accounts list Sewanee, Tennessee—Allen moved with his family to Denver, Colorado, after his father’s death. He displayed an early gift for music and chose the saxophone, drawn to both the prevailing swing style and the rising jump-blues sound. An accomplished athlete as well, he earned a dual scholarship in sports and music to Xavier College in New Orleans. Arriving just as postwar rhythm & blues began to take shape, he was already influenced by Coleman Hawkins and Gene Ammons; he started performing locally while still a student. By 1947 he had abandoned any athletic ambitions to join Paul Gayten’s band on saxophone. Through producer, composer, and bandleader Dave Bartholomew he soon found work behind Fats Domino, Little Richard, Amos Milburn, and Smiley Lewis. Alongside fellow tenorman Alvin “Red” Tyler, bassist Frank Fields, and drummer Earl Palmer, Allen formed the rhythmic foundation for much of the finest New Orleans rock & roll and rhythm & blues of the decade, including the bulk of Fats Domino’s major hits from that era.
Although steady session and sideman work came easily, translating that success into a solo career proved difficult. In 1956 Allen released the Aladdin sides “Shimmy” and “Rockin’ at Cosimo’s,” neither of which gained traction. The next year he signed with Al Silver of New York’s Ember and Herald labels—home to the Silhouettes, whose “Get a Job” became one of Silver’s biggest sellers, as well as the Turbans and the Five Satins—as both producer and recording artist. He oversaw sessions for Ernie Kador (later known as Ernie K-Doe), Joe Jones, and Tommy Ridgely while continuing to tour with Domino and others. In 1958, drawing on a riff developed on the road with Domino, Allen cut the buoyant instrumental “Walkin’ with Mr. Lee.” Dick Clark featured the track repeatedly on American Bandstand; it lingered in the middle of the national charts for three months, reached number 54, and sold steadily enough to reach many households. Follow-up releases “Tic Toc” and “Cat Walk” enjoyed only brief or regional notice, yet “Walkin’ with Mr. Lee” secured Allen’s reputation. He recorded the full album Walkin’ with Mr. Lee for Ember, an LP that balanced stomping New Orleans rhythms with surprisingly refined jazz and blues passages—perhaps too mature for its intended teen audience. Over subsequent decades the record became a prized collector’s item, representing Allen’s sole long-form statement and a vivid document of the rock & roll era. He maintained a touring band through 1961, then rejoined Fats Domino until the mid-1960s.
Allen left New Orleans for Los Angeles in 1965, sustaining himself through club dates and occasional studio calls. At one point he stepped away from music for steady employment at an aircraft plant, yet the early-1970s oldies revival brought him back alongside Domino. He again withdrew at the close of the decade, only to receive fresh invitations in the 1980s from a new wave of rockers. He recorded with the Stray Cats and, most notably, with the California band the Blasters, completing two albums with them early in the decade—an unexpected late-career chapter after four decades of playing. Allen died of lung cancer in 1994.
Born in 1927 in Pittsburg, Kansas—though some accounts list Sewanee, Tennessee—Allen moved with his family to Denver, Colorado, after his father’s death. He displayed an early gift for music and chose the saxophone, drawn to both the prevailing swing style and the rising jump-blues sound. An accomplished athlete as well, he earned a dual scholarship in sports and music to Xavier College in New Orleans. Arriving just as postwar rhythm & blues began to take shape, he was already influenced by Coleman Hawkins and Gene Ammons; he started performing locally while still a student. By 1947 he had abandoned any athletic ambitions to join Paul Gayten’s band on saxophone. Through producer, composer, and bandleader Dave Bartholomew he soon found work behind Fats Domino, Little Richard, Amos Milburn, and Smiley Lewis. Alongside fellow tenorman Alvin “Red” Tyler, bassist Frank Fields, and drummer Earl Palmer, Allen formed the rhythmic foundation for much of the finest New Orleans rock & roll and rhythm & blues of the decade, including the bulk of Fats Domino’s major hits from that era.
Although steady session and sideman work came easily, translating that success into a solo career proved difficult. In 1956 Allen released the Aladdin sides “Shimmy” and “Rockin’ at Cosimo’s,” neither of which gained traction. The next year he signed with Al Silver of New York’s Ember and Herald labels—home to the Silhouettes, whose “Get a Job” became one of Silver’s biggest sellers, as well as the Turbans and the Five Satins—as both producer and recording artist. He oversaw sessions for Ernie Kador (later known as Ernie K-Doe), Joe Jones, and Tommy Ridgely while continuing to tour with Domino and others. In 1958, drawing on a riff developed on the road with Domino, Allen cut the buoyant instrumental “Walkin’ with Mr. Lee.” Dick Clark featured the track repeatedly on American Bandstand; it lingered in the middle of the national charts for three months, reached number 54, and sold steadily enough to reach many households. Follow-up releases “Tic Toc” and “Cat Walk” enjoyed only brief or regional notice, yet “Walkin’ with Mr. Lee” secured Allen’s reputation. He recorded the full album Walkin’ with Mr. Lee for Ember, an LP that balanced stomping New Orleans rhythms with surprisingly refined jazz and blues passages—perhaps too mature for its intended teen audience. Over subsequent decades the record became a prized collector’s item, representing Allen’s sole long-form statement and a vivid document of the rock & roll era. He maintained a touring band through 1961, then rejoined Fats Domino until the mid-1960s.
Allen left New Orleans for Los Angeles in 1965, sustaining himself through club dates and occasional studio calls. At one point he stepped away from music for steady employment at an aircraft plant, yet the early-1970s oldies revival brought him back alongside Domino. He again withdrew at the close of the decade, only to receive fresh invitations in the 1980s from a new wave of rockers. He recorded with the Stray Cats and, most notably, with the California band the Blasters, completing two albums with them early in the decade—an unexpected late-career chapter after four decades of playing. Allen died of lung cancer in 1994.
Albums
