Page 4 - BiTS_09_SEPTEMBER_2020

Bryan Lee (The Braille Blues Daddy)

March 16, 1943 – August 21, 2020

Bryan Lee was an American blues

guitarist and singer based in New
Orleans, Louisiana. During the ’80s
and '90s, the only blues band
that visitors to Bourbon Street
in New Orleans would hear was

Bryan Lee’s Jump Street Five Band at the Old Absinthe
House. Bryan completely lost his eyesight by the age of
eight. His avid interest in early rock and blues was
fostered through the 1950s by late night listening
sessions via the Nashville-based radio station WLAC-AM,
where he first encountered the sounds of Elmore James,
Albert King and Albert Collins.

By his late teens, Lee was playing rhythm guitar in a
regional band called The Glaciers that covered Elvis

Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry material.
Through the 1960s, Lee's interest turned to Chicago
blues and he soon found himself immersed in that scene,
opening for some of his boyhood heroes. In 1979 he
released his first album named Beauty Isn't Always Visual.

In January 1982, Lee moved to New Orleans, eventually landing a steady gig at the Old Absinthe
House on Bourbon Street, becoming a favourite of tourists in the city's French Quarter. For the next
14 years, Lee and his Jump Street Five played five nights a week at that popular bar, developing a

huge following and a solid reputation.

To the end of his life, Lee continued to perform in New Orleans. He also toured several times a year

in the Midwest, Eastern Seaboard, Rocky Mountain States and recently Europe and Brazil.

Lee appeared with Kenny Wayne Shepherd as the musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

on February 14, 2007.

He told OffBeat in 1994, “I think it’s important to show people that you can have a handicap, or a

disability, whatever people want to call blindness — and believe me, in some respects it is a
handicap, because you can’t read your money, you can’t drive a car—I feel it is important for me,
even in that little club, to let people see that I can get around by myself. Like in church, they don’t
have to bring communion to me — I can walk up and take communion. These are small things, but I
think it’s important that they see that blind people can live productive lives and do a lot for
themselves. There are those who can’t, but there are sighted people who can’t do things for
themselves, because they don’t have the want or they just don’t have the ability.”

4