Veteran traditional musician Rick Lee has been a familiar part of Boston’s old-time and Anglo-Celtic music communities since the 1960’s, making a series of records with his former wife Lorraine Lee and with the band “Solomon’s Seal.” This solo CD features Lee and friends in a set of ballads and story songs, some traditional and some modern, connecting British Isles and Appalachian sources and mixing in a couple of country songs, too. Lee has a weathered Yankee voice, sounding at times like a less polished but more rootsy Dave Mallet, adding practiced accompaniment on frailed banjo and electric piano. He’s one of the rare performers who has successfully adapted electric keyboards to this type of music. The title song is Lee’s vivid ballad of his hometown’s history, describing the 17th century meeting of English settlers and the native Natick people. Piano versions of the classic supernatural ballad “Tam Lin” and the haunting Irish tale of “The Tinkerman’s Daughter” are other highlights.
– Tom Nelligan, (Dirty Linen, #66, October/November 1996, p. 83) on Natick by Rick Lee
