Jack Lee, the singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer with the Nineteen Seventies West Coast band The Nerves who wrote the ability pop trio’s “Hanging on the Phone,” famously coated by Debbie Harry and Blondie, has died. He was 71.
Lee died Might 26 in Santa Monica after a three-year battle with colon most cancers, his household introduced. “He by no means gave up on his music, to the very finish,” they wrote in a press release. “His guitar, proper by his facet. He lived his songs. One after the other they advised the story of his life. Some goals die. His by no means will.”
In 1976, The Nerves — Lee on guitar, Peter Case on bass and Paul Collins on drums — secured a $2,000 mortgage to report a four-song, self-titled, self-released EP in San Francisco that featured two Lee compositions, “Give Me Some Time” and “Hanging on the Phone.”
After the band cut up in ’78, author Jeffrey Lee Pierce — then-president of the Blondie Fan Membership — introduced a replica of The Nerves’ EP and “Hanging on the Phone” to the eye of Blondie vocalist Harry, who phoned Lee and requested for permission to report it.
“I keep in mind the day vividly. It was a Friday. They have been going to chop off our electrical energy at 6 o’clock, the telephone too,” he mentioned in a 2007 interview with Mojo Journal.
Producer Mike Chapman’s high-energy model of the tune, which duplicated The Nerves’ association and its signature ringing telephone intro, helped thrust Blondie’s Parallel Traces to No. 6 within the U.S. and No. 1 within the U.Okay. on the album charts in 1978.
“Hanging on the Phone” additionally could be coated by Def Leppard, Cat Energy and Davila 666, whereas the unique Nerves model was featured this 12 months on the Netflix collection Outer Banks.
Courtesy Jensen Communications
Born in Alaska on March 25, 1952, Lee left dwelling for Santa Monica at 15 and settled in San Francisco 4 years later. He based The Nerves in 1974 with Case and Collins, two guys from the East Coast who additionally sang and wrote.
“The primary day I met him, in late ’73 or early ’74, we went out and sat within the automotive, and I performed him ‘When You Discover Out’ and he performed me ‘Hanging on the Phone,’” Case recalled in a press release. “It was improbable and provoking. When Paul joined, it was a really thrilling interval, and Jack was the mover and shaker. Within the early days, he was on hearth, and he was visionary about the place music might go.”
Added Collins: “I beloved Jack. He was my mentor — I met him once I’d simply turned 18, and assembly him modified my life. I all the time seemed as much as him as a fully top-notch songwriter. I idolized him from day one. Being in The Nerves was the perfect boot camp anyone might ask for to begin a profession in music.”
After recording their EP, The Nerves relocated to Los Angeles on New 12 months’s Day 1977. That 12 months, in addition they booked their very own self-produced coast-to-coast U.S. tour, showing with such acts because the Ramones, Pere Ubu, Devo and Mink DeVille.
Following The Nerves’ breakup, Case fashioned The Plimsouls and Collins based The Beat.
Lee later launched two collections of authentic materials, Jack’s Lee’s Best Hits Vol. 1 (financed by royalties from “Hanging on the Phone”) in 1983 and a self-titled set in 1985. A 23-song compilation of his work, Greater Than Life, was issued in 2016.
Survivors embody his spouse, Mieke; kids Wallie, Grace, Mary and Cynthia; grandchildren Jack, Brenlee, Adam, Alana Pleasure, Jackson and Hudson; and half-siblings Robert, Virginia and Katherine.
