Roosevelt Collier and Alvin Lee of sacred-steel family band the Lee Boys take their 6-string hallelujahs beyond the church and garner praises from some of the biggest names in secular guitar and bass.
The Lee Boys - "Testify" by Evil Teen Records
“Come on, man—I was freaked out,” says pedal-steel guru Roosevelt Collier of “hard rock gospel” band the Lee Boys. “I was, like, ‘John Scofield just left his coffee cup on my table. Nobody better touch it!’” Such are the pleasures of life when the incredible players from the sacred-steel circuit step beyond hallowed halls and into the gentile world. “I had the pleasure of him coming in my room for about an hour and talking about my background. We played together and, dude—it was sick.”
Lee Boys consists exclusively of family members: brothers Alvin (guitar), Derrick, and Keith Lee (vocals), and their nephews Alvin Cordy Jr. (bass), Earl Walker (drums), and Collier (pedal steel guitar). From about age 7, they all learned to play multiple instruments and grew up performing sacred-steel music at the House of God Church in Perrine, Florida. In 2000, they lost two family members who were significant musical influences—Reverend Robert E. Lee and Glenn Lee—and from that point, they decided to move beyond the walls of the church. “The torch was passed on,” Collier says. “That was my cue and signal that it’s time for me to take this to a whole ’nother level. Everybody felt the same way, and that’s when we went full-fledged onto the scene.”
In 2003, the Lee Boys had their first big tour playing the Blues to Bop Festival in France and Switzerland. “We were fresh on the scene, and we went overseas first. That was really big for us—I was nervous, nervous as dirt,” Collier recalls. “But the crowd went crazy. They were up dancing and praising.” By that time, other sacred-steel acts like Robert Randolph and the Campbell Brothers had already made their mark, but the Lee Boys hit the festival circuit with a vengeance and quickly developed a reputation for their frenetic shows. In 2008, after performing at Bonnaroo, the band debuted on national TV with a killer performance on Conan O’Brien. “That year was a turning point for us,” Alvin says.
Alvin Lee (left) and Roosevelt Collier (right) jam with Warren Haynes on his Man in Motion tour at Atlanta’s Tabernacle in 2011. Photo by Lisa Keel/peachtreeimages.com
Not surprisingly, the Lee Boys’ high-energy, improv-laden live shows have made them a favorite of the jam-band scene, too. In addition to trading licks with Sco, they’ve shared the stage with some of that genre’s brightest stars including Victor Wooten, Soulive’s Eric Krasno, and Warren Haynes. The latter, in particular, was instrumental in getting the band into the spotlight. “He let us jam on his sets with Gov’t Mule, gave us an opportunity to play with the Allman Brothers Band, and also let us open up for his band,” notes Alvin.
Haynes also signed the Lee Boys to Evil Teen, a label he co-owns, and made a guest appearance on Testify, the band’s latest release. Virtuoso guitarist Jimmy Herring was also enlisted to play on a few tracks and turned up the heat with his finger-twisting lines. “There’s a saying that if you want to be good, play with people that are better than you,” says Collier. “To play with Jimmy on the same tracks—that upped my game. Because of the stuff that Jimmy was laying down, I had to almost prove myself, you know? I had to play my heart out.” Collier is referring to tracks like “Always by My Side” and the title track “Testify,” which showcases an incendiary display of friendly fire, with Herring’s country-fied lines answered by Collier’s chromatically ascending patterns.
Roosevelt Collier's Gear
Guitars
DL [Dan Lawson] lap steel, Fessenden 10-string pedal steel
Amps
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Egnater Renegade 112, Marsh 50-watt closed-back amp
Effects
Pigtronix pedals (Overdrive, Envelope Filter, Sustain), Ernie Ball volume pedal, Dunlop Cry Baby Wah, Boss GT-8
Strings
Ernie Ball Steel Guitar Strings
“I was born with this gift of playing the steel, but it was up to me to take that gift and grow with it,” says Collier. “I used to go off a thousand miles a minute—on each song, each solo was a thousand miles a minute. I got the reputation for being fast, like, ‘Man, this guy is lightning speed.’ But when a friend like Rick Lollar would come onstage, he’d play like eight notes and eat me alive. The crowd would go crazy, because he built his stuff. It’s all about building. Save your big guns for later on.”
The songwriting on Testify comprises a unique mix of positive messages, catchy grooves, and sophisticated harmonies. Tracks like “Sinnerman” (which references Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish”) and “We Need to Hear from You” make use of unexpected modulations that would be equally at home on a Steely Dan cut. “Between jazz and funk, that’s where you’ll find me,” says Alvin. “If you listen to my chord progressions, you’ll hear a lot of jazz influences. A lot of the church musicians were big influences, but I also like guys like Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, and Jaco Pastorius—because I mainly played bass coming up. I also loved George Benson and Stanley Jordan.”
Alvin Lee's Gear
Guitars
Fender Strat with Roland MIDI pickup
Amps
Fender Twin Reverb, Roland JC-120
Effects
Roland GR-33 guitar synth, Boss GT-8
Strings and Picks
D’Addario .010 sets, Fender medium picks
The Lee Boys don’t come from an academically jazz background per se, but they‘re always experimenting, taking lessons, and applying their knowledge of theory to different styles. “I have a lot of jazz influence because of these guys I’ve come across,” Collier says. “This scene outside of the church has been a big influence on me. I’ve learned a lot. With us intertwining that theory with our traditional sacred steel—plus all the different genres that we listen to—I think that formed the Lee Boys style.”
Because the band members were raised as multi-instrumentalists, they often switch instruments onstage, with Alvin switching to bass or pedal steel and Collier playing electric guitar or bass. For the most part though, Alvin is on guitar—the perfect foil for Collier’s overdriven steel explorations. “My main guitar is a Fender Strat with a Roland MIDI setup and a GR-33 guitar synth,” Alvin says. “I use a MIDI piano or organ sound to give it a full, gospel-spirit feel. More or less, Roosevelt is doing all the picking and I stay in the background and kind of form the body with chords. From my background as a bass player, I use medium picks because I like to hit the strings a little harder. I usually do licks with my rhythm patterns, so I need some resistance, but I don’t use heavy picks because I don’t solo that much.” While Lee and Collier are both proponents of the Boss GT-8 multi-effects unit, it’s a family feud when it comes to amps: Alvin favors a Fender Twin Reverb and Roland JC-120, while Collier vehemently disagrees. “No, no, no, no, dude. I don’t use Twin Reverbs—I can’t stand them,” he says. “Back at church, the only amp that we actually played out of was a Peavey Session 500, which is a solid-state amp. But I learned about amps, wattage, and tubes. Now, I really don’t like to use anything past a 50-watt amp, because I like to crank the bad boy up. Now I use a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, because it has a smooth overdrive channel. But my first-choice amp is an Egnater Renegade 112—that amp smokes. But a lot of your tone is your personal touch.”
YouTube It
Watch below for a taste of the Lee Boys’ high-energy, sacred-steel-meets-jam-band live performances.
The Lee Boys build to an insane climax
on “Come on Help Me Lift Him
Up” at the 2008 Bonnaroo festival.
Joined onstage by Warren
Haynes at the Fillmore Silver
Spring in Maryland, the Lee Boys
perform a rip-roaring rendition of
Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.”
Bassist extraordinaire Victor Wooten
backs the Lees on this 2009
rendition of “Testify”—the title
track of their latest release—at the
House of Blues in New Orleans.
Well-designed pickups. Extremely comfortable contours. Smooth, playable neck.
Middle position could use a bit more mids. Price could scare off some.
$2,999
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II
A surprise 6-string collaboration with Cory Wong moves effortlessly between ’70s George Benson and Blink-182 tones.
Announced at the 2025 NAMM show, Cory Wong’s new collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man scratched an itch—namely, the itch for a humbucker-loaded guitar that could appease Wong’s rock-and-R&B alter ego and serve as complement to his signature Fender Strat. Inspiration came from no further than a bandmate’s namesake instrument. Vulfpeck bassist Joe Dart has a line of signature model EBMM basses, one of which uses the classic StingRay bass body profile. So, when Wong went looking for something distinctive, he wondered if EBMM could create a 6-string guitar using the classic StingRay bass body and headstock profile.
Double the Fun
Wong is, by his own admission, a single-coil devotee. That’s where the core of his sound lives and it feels like home to him. However, Wong is as inspired by classic Earth, Wind & Fire tones and the pop-punk of the early ’90s as he is by Prince and the Minneapolis funk that he grew up with. The StingRay II is a guitar that can cover all those bases.
Ernie Ball has a history of designing fast-feeling, comfortable necks. And I can’t remember ever struggling to move around an EBMM fretboard. The roasted maple C-shaped neck here is slightly thicker in profile than I expected, but still very comfortable. (I must also mention that the back of the neck has a dazzling, almost holographic look to the grain that morphs in the light). By any measure, the StingRay II’s curves seemed designed for comfort and speed. Now, let’s talk about those pickups.Hot or Not?
A few years ago EBMM introduced a line of HT (heat-treated) pickups. The pickups are built with technology the company used to develop their Cobalt and M-Series strings. A fair amount of the process is shrouded in secrecy and must be taken on faith, but EBMM says treating elements of the pickup with heat increases clarity and dynamic response.
To find out for myself, I plugged the StingRay II into a Fender Vibroverb, Mesa/Boogie Mark VII, and a Neural DSP Quad Cortex (Wong’s preferred live rig). Right away, it was easy to hear the tight low end and warm highs. Often, I feel like the low end from neck humbuckers can feel too loose or lack definition. Neither was the case here. The HT pickup is beautifully balanced with a bounce that’s rich with ES-335 vibes. Clean tones are punchy and bright—especially with the Vibroverb—and dirty tones have more room for air. Individual notes were clear and articulate, too.
Any guitar associated with Wong needs a strong middle-position or combined pickup tone, and the StingRay II delivers. I never felt any significant signal loss in the blended signal from the two humbuckers, even if I could use a bit more midrange presence in the voicing. The midrange gap is nothing an EQ or Tube Screamer couldn’t fix, though. And not surprisingly, very Strat-like sounds were easy to achieve for having less midrange bump.
Knowing Wong’s love for ’90s alt-rock, I expected the bridge pickup to have real bite, and it does, demonstrating exceptional dynamic range and exceptional high-end response that never approached shrill. Nearly every type of distortion and overdrive I threw at it sounded great, but especially anything with a scooped-mid flavor and plenty of low end.
The Verdict
By any measure, the StingRay II is a top-notch, professional instrument. The fit and finish are immaculate and the feel of the neck makes me wonder if EBMM stashes some kind of secret sandpaper, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt a smoother, more playable neck. Kudos are also due to EBMM and Wong for finding an instrument that can move between ’70s George Benson tones and the hammering power chords of ’90s Blink-182. Admittedly, the nearly $3K price could give some players pause, but considering the overall quality of the instrument, it’s not out of line. Wong’s involvement and search for distinct sounds makes the StingRay II more than a tired redux of a classic model—an admirable accomplishment considering EBMM’s long and storied history.
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II Cory Wong Signature Electric Guitar - Charcoal Blue with Rosewood Fingerboard
StingRay II Cory Wong - Charcoal BlueTube Amp Doctor has reissued one of the company’s mostsought-after products: the TAD 6L6WGC-STR Blackplate™ small bottle power tube is back inproduction after a 5-year absence.
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The TAD 6L6GC-STR Blackplate™ and the TAD 6L6WGC-STR Blackplate™ feature TAD’sexclusive black-plate designs, gold grid wire, double getter construction, no-noise filaments and1.2mm thick heavy duty glass. This tube is approximately 80mm high (without pins) and canreplace 5881 and 6L6WGB tubes.
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In challenging times, sometimes elemental music, like the late Jessie Mae Hemphill’s raucous Mississippi hill country blues, is the best salve. It reminds us of what’s truly essential––musically, culturally, and emotionally. And provides a restorative and safe place, where we can open up, listen, and experience without judgement. And smile.
I’ve been prowling the backroads, juke joints, urban canyons, and VFW halls for more than 40 years, in search of the rawest, most powerful and authentic American music. And among the many things I’ve learned is that what’s more interesting than the music itself is the people who make it.
One of the most interesting people I’ve met is the late Jessie Mae Hemphill. By the time my wife, Laurie Hoffma, and I met Jessie Mae, on a visit to her trailer in Senatobia, Mississippi, she’d had a stroke and retired from performing, but we’d been fortunate to see her years before at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, where she brought a blues style that was like quiet thunder, rumbling with portent and joy and ache, and all the other stuff that makes us human, sung to her own droning, rocking accompaniment on an old Gibson ES-120T.
To say she was from a musical family is an understatement. Her grandfather, Sid, was twice recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. While Sid played fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and more, he was best known as the leader of a fife-and-drum band that made music that spilled directly from Africa’s main artery. Sid was Jessie Mae’s teacher, and she learned well. In fact, you can see her leading her own fife-and-drum group in Robert Mugge’s wonderful documentary Deep Blues(with the late musician and journalist Robert Palmer as on-screen narrator), where she also performs a mournful-but-hypnotic song about betrayal—solo, on guitar—in Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint.
That movie, a 1982 episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (on YouTube) where she appears as part of Othar Turner’s Gravel Springs fife-and-drum band, and worldwide festival appearances are as close as Jessie Mae ever got to fame, although that was enough to make her important and influential to Bonnie Raitt, Cat Power, and others. And she made two exceptional albums during her lifetime: 1981’s She-Wolf and 1990’s Feelin’ Good. If you’re unfamiliar with North Mississippi blues, their sound will be a revelation. The style, as Jessie Mae essayed it, is a droning, hypnotic joy that bumps along like a freight train full of happily rattling box cars populated by carefree hobos. Often the songs ride on one chord, but that chord is the only one that’s needed to put the music’s joy and conviction across. Feelin’ Good, in particular, is essential Jessie Mae. Even the songs about heartbreak, like “Go Back To Your Used To Be” and “Shame on You,” have a propulsion dappled with little bends and other 6-string inflections that wrap the listener in a hypnotic web. Listening to Feelin’ Good, it’s easy to disappear in the music and to have all your troubles vanish as well—for at least as long as its 14 songs last.“She made it clear that she had a gun—a .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag.”
The challenge I’ve long issued to people unfamiliar with Jessie Mae’s music is: “Listen to Feelin’ Good and then tell me if you’re not feeling happier, more cheerful, and relaxed.” It truly does, as the old cliché would have it, make your backbone slip and your troubles along with it. Especially uptempo songs like the scrappy title track and the charging “Streamline Train.” There’s also an appealing live 1984 performance of the latter on YouTube, with Jessie Mae decked out in leopard-print pants and vest, playing a tambourine wedged onto her left high-heel shoe––one of her stylish signatures.
Jessie Mae was a complex person, caught between the old-school dilemma of playing “the Devil’s music” and yearning for a spiritual life, sweet as pecan pie with extra molasses but quick to turn mean at any perceived slight. She also spent much of her later years in poverty, in a small trailer with a hole in the floor where mice and other critters got in. And she was as mistrustful of strangers as she was warm once she accepted you into her heart. But watch your step before she did. On our first visit to her home, she made it clear that she had a gun—a .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag and would make Dirty Harry envious.
Happily, she took us into her heart and we took her into ours, helping as much as we could and talking often. She was inspiring, and I wrote a song about her, and even got to perform it for her in her trailer, which was just a little terrifying, since I knew she would not hold back her criticism if she didn't like it. Instead, she giggled like a kid and blushed, and asked if I’d write one more verse about the artifacts she’d gathered while touring around the world.
Jessie Mae died in 2006, at age 82, and, as happens when every great folk artist dies, we lost many songs and stories, and the wisdom of her experience. But you can still get a whiff of all that––if you listen to Feelin’ Good.
Intermediate
Intermediate
How David Gilmour masterully employs target notes to make his solos sing.
When I was an undergraduate jazz performance major struggling to get a handle on bebop improvisation, I remember my professor Dave LaLama admonishing me, “If you think playing over the fast tunes is hard, wait until you try playing over the ballads. What Dr. Lalama was trying to impart was that playing fast scales over fast changes could get you by, but playing melodically over slow tempos, when your note choices are much more exposed, would really test how well you could create meaningful phrases.
Although getting past the “this scale works over these chords” approach to improvisation generally requires hours of shedding, aiming for particular target notes (specific notes over specific chords) is an optimum strategy to maximize your practice time. In the realm of rock guitar, I can think of no greater master of the melodic target note technique while playing ballads than David Gilmour.
For the unfamiliar few, Gilmour was first enlisted by fledgling psychedelic rockers Pink Floyd in 1967, when original guitarist/vocalist Syd Barrett began having drug-induced struggles with mental health. The band experimented with various artistic approaches for several years before refining them into a cohesive “art rock” sound by the early ’70s. The result was an unbroken streak of classic, genre-defining conceptual albums that included Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. Although bassist/vocalist Roger Waters assumed the role of de facto bandleader and primary songwriter, Gilmour was a significant contributor who was praised for his soulful singing and expertly phrased lead playing that seemed to magically rework pedestrian blues phrases into sublimely evocative melodies. His focus on musicality over excessive displays of technique made him a musician’s musician of sorts and earned him a stellar reputation in guitar circles. When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in the mid ’80s, Gilmour surprised many by calmly assuming the leadership mantle, leading the band through another decade of chart-topping albums and stadium tours. Although Pink Floyd are not officially broken up (keyboardist and founding member Richard Wright died in 2008 while Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason joined forces with Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk on the one-off single “Hey Hey Rise Up” in 2022), Gilmour has mostly spent the last few decades concentrating on his solo career. His latest release, Luck and Strange, features his wife, novelist Polly Sampson, as primary lyricist and daughter Romany Gilmour as vocalist on several tracks. His recent tour filled arenas around the world.
Let’s take a page from Gilmour’s hallowed playbook and see how incorporating a few well-chosen target notes can give our playing more melody and structure.
For the sake of simplicity, all the examples use the Gm/Bb major pentatonic scale forms. In my experience as a teacher, I find that most students can get a pretty solid handle on the root-position, Form-I minor pentatonic scale but struggle to incorporate the other four shapes while playing lead. One suggestion I give them is to work on playing the scales from the top notes down and focus on the four highest strings only. I believe this is a more logical and useful approach to incorporating these forms into your vocabulary. Try playing through Ex. 1, Ex. 2, Ex. 3, and Ex. 4, which are based on the top-down approach of the Form I, Form II, Form IV, and Form I (up an octave) shapes respectively.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2
Ex. 3
Ex. 4
Once you’ve gotten a handle on the scales, try playing Ex. 5, which is loosely based on the extended introduction to Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” We begin by soloing over a static Gm chord for four measures. As target notes, I’ve chosen the root and 5th of the G minor chord ( the notes G and D, respectively). In the first measure, we’re starting in a minor pentatonic Form I with a bend up to the root of the Gm chord. A flurry of notes on beat 4 sets us up for the bend to the D in the second measure. The D note is again targeted in measure three—this time up an octave via a shift into the minor pentatonic Form II shape. Measure four aims for the G tonic up an octave, but ends with a bend that targets a C—the root of the IVm (Cm) chord in the final measure. By focusing on target notes and connecting them with embellishing licks, your lead lines will have a much better sense of direction and melodic narrative. Also, by only targeting the root and 5th of the chord, the target note approach will be easily transferrable to songs in a G blues context (G pentatonic minor over a G major or G dominant tonality).
Ex. 5
A further exploration of this approach, Ex. 6 begins with a two-beat pickup that resolves to the scale tonic G. This time however, the G isn’t serving as the root of the Im chord. Instead, it’s the 5th of Cm—the IVm chord. Employing the root of the pentatonic scale as the fifth of the IVm chord is a textbook Gilmour-ism and you can hear him use it to good effect on the extended intro to “Echoes” from Live in Gdansk. When approaching the C on beat 2 of the second full measure, bend up from the Bb on the 6th fret of the 1st string then slide up to the C on the 8th fret without releasing the bend or picking again. In the final measure, I’ve introduced two Db notes, which serve as the b5 “blue note” of the scale and provide melodically compelling passing tones on the way to the G target note on beat 4.
Ex. 6
Exclusively positioned in the Form-IV G minor pentatonic shape, Ex. 7 is based on a bluesy lick over the I chord in the first and third measures that alternately targets a resolution to the root of the IV chord (C ) and the root of the V chord (D7#9) in the second and fourth measures. Being able to resolve your lead phrases to the roots of the I, IV, and V chords on the fly is an essential skill ace improvisers like Gilmour have mastered.
Ex. 7
Now let’s turn our attention to the Bb major pentatonic scale, which is the relative major of G minor. Play through the Form I and Form II shapes detailed in Ex. 8 and Ex. 9 below. You’ll see I’ve added an Eb to the scale (technically making them hexatonic scales). This allows us a bit more melodic freedom and—most importantly—gives us the root note of the IV chord.
Ex. 8
Ex. 9
Channeling the melodic mojo of Gilmour’s lead jaunts on Pink Floyd’s “Mother” and “Comfortably Numb,” Ex. 10 targets chord tones from the I, IV, and V (Bb, Eb, and F) chords.
The muted-string rake in first measure helps “sting” the F note, which is the 5th of the Bb. Measure two targets a G note which is the 3rd of the Eb. This same chord/target note pairing is repeated in the third and fourth measures, although the G is now down an octave. For the F and Eb chords of measures five and six, I’ve mirrored a favorite Gilmour go-to: bending up to the 3rd of a chord then releasing and resolving to the root (an A resolving to an F for the F chord and a G resolving to an Eb for the Eb chord.) The final measure follows a melodic run down the Bb scale that ultimately resolves on the tonic. Be sure to pay attention to the intonation of all your bends, especially the half-step bend on the first beat of measure seven.
As a takeaway from this lesson, let’s strive to “Be Like Dave” and pay closer attention to target notes when soloing. Identify the roots of all the chords you’re playing over in your scales and aim for them as the beginning and/or ending notes of your phrases. Think of these target notes as support beams that will provide structure to your lead lines and ultimately make them more melodically compelling.