Metro Pulse/Music/Tim Lee Band

Who:
Tim Lee Band

What:
Festival Americana Benefit for Steps House. Also featuring R.B. Morris, Todd Steed, Leslie Woods, Jodie Manross, Michael Crawley and many more.

When:
Saturday, May 31, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tim Lee Band performs at 6 p.m. on stage two.

Where:
City Streets Skate Park, 8530 Kingston Pike

Cost:
$14 for adults or two for $20 until the day of the show.

Former Windbreaker winds up in Knoxville playing music

by Rikki Hall

When Tim Lee was a teenager in Jackson, Miss., a group of jazz musicians befriended him, letting the young guitarist into their free improv sessions. That sense of creativity and adventure has guided Lee through a career as unique and far ranging as improvised music, including stints as a 5th-grade teacher, a magazine editor, a hired axe, and a critics' darling.

With the Windbreakers, contemporaries of popmeisters like R.E.M. and the dB's, Lee achieved critical acclaim, six albums, and enough fans to justify Time Machine, a compilation of Windbreakers' recordings from 1982-2002 released this month by Paisley Pop.

Lee has toured with Let's Active, the Swimming Pool Qs (who he is playing with in Atlanta on June 7), John Stirratt, and more. He has recorded and co-written songs with dozens of musicians, including Howard Wuelfing (Half Japanese) and Matt Puicci (Rain Parade).

After immersing himself that deeply into music, Lee improvised a key change in his life by taking a job teaching 5th graders. The only hint of his musical past was the monthly dose of Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" Lee indoctrinated his students with.

At the time, Tim's wife of 21 years, Susan, was busy as art director for Living Blues magazine and other projects of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Lee's musical efforts were achieving enough commercial success to make a teacher's salary look good.

Somehow the Lees improvised yet another shift into the world of dirt-track racing, and that is what brought them to Knoxville. Lee is editor and Susan art director of Dirt Late Model, a racing magazine that averages 128 pages of full-color daring and dust every month.

They frequently travel to races, but Knoxville has been home since they bought a house in Fountain City in 2001. Around that time, Tim felt the urge to write and play music again, and when Susan decided she wanted to play bass, he figured it was time for a reprise of the old heartfelt pop theme and improvised himself back to the stage.

Tim "duped" French Broads frontman John Baker into joining his band. Baker prefers "lured" and relishes the chance to wield a guitar without having to remember lyrics and sing. "It tickles a different brain lobe than the French Broads," said Baker. Lee added drummer Jason White (also of the Ghosts and Roundhouse) to form the Tim Lee Band.

"It's the best band I've ever had," says Lee. "[John Baker] is great at coming up with parts." Baker says that Lee brings songs to the band in simple form and gives his bandmates free reign to come up with parts and arrangements. Performances end up being improvisations. "One night the second verse might be quiet, and the next night the third verse is quiet. We don't plan it out, it just happens. That kind of interaction makes it all worthwhile," says Lee.

Audiences have agreed with Lee's assessment. At the International Pop Overthrow in Chicago recently, the band was awarded with a Saturday gig after treating a Wednesday crowd to some loud, chunky rock. Lee says that Oxford, Miss., gave him a warm homecoming two weekends ago, and Birmingham trio Nineteen-Forty-Five thanked them for a "ripping" opening set last Wednesday at Pilot Light.

Tim Lee has bigger plans for Knoxville than just borrowing musicians from other bands. He wants us to join together and improvise a great music scene. "It's amazing how many great bands there are that don't even know each other," he says of Knoxville. "I should make it my goal to get them all to meet each other."

Tim and Susan take "any excuse to come downtown," and they have been scheming improvements. "We need a club where people hang out," Tim said, noting that Knoxville's music venues are not necessarily the same places people go for beers. "We need an independent book store," Susan adds.

Their recipe sounds a bit like Market Square circa 1992, when Printer's Mark and Snakesnatch Lodge were open, and it may describe Market Square circa 2004 as well. Lee says that people who want Knoxville's music scene to grow should "go see local bands one to three times per week."

This Saturday the Tim Lee Band will be one of dozens of Knoxville bands playing at the Festival Americana. Festival participants can find out which bands they like and improvise a whole summer of supporting Knoxville's musicians.