Laurel Lee

Sometimes it’s not about how you get there; it’s about what to do once you’re actually there.
Laurel Lee Welch of St. Augustine didn’t set out to front her own band when she formed the altcountry act Laurel Lee and the Escapees. The evolutionary process was as subtle and organic as her songwriting; something she did just because she did it. “My band at the time was some boys I practiced music with. We were all just learning to play and I was writing songs on the side. They would say, ‘Let’s do that song that you just wrote.’ I thought I might actually be able to put something together, mostly because they said I should,” she says, “I had done some theatre so I was not afraid to perform. I just didn’t realize that was the next step until I was stepping in it.”
The original Escapees proved to be a loyal bunch, ably backing Laurel Lee for five years before she left the West Coast behind and settled in Northeast Florida. The creative community in Jacksonville welcomed her with open arms, and the generosity and support within the community made it easy for Laurel Lee to cherry-pick the new generation of Escapees.
“Jacksonville is a really large small town,” says Welch, “Fortunately, I walked into a very encouraging group of artists, even if they didn’t do that style of music.”
Laurel Lee quickly amassed a solid band with a little luck and extreme good fortune. Bass player John Mortensen was her husband’s old college buddy. She and singer Dolly Penland met at an open mic night and the pair became friends and collaborators. Drummer Don Beale, with three decades of experience under his belt including a stint with local punk icon Stevie Stiletto and the Switchblades, answered her ad on Craigslist.:“I said I was looking for someone who could do a ‘Waylon Jennings- Telecaster thing.’ It was pretty specific. He said, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’” Violinist Phillip Pan, who has enjoyed a lengthy tenure with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, regularly joins the band on stage where he gets a break from the structured compositions in classical music and get his fiddle on. “In a country group, there is a lot of jamming,” Welch explains, “Phillip had no extemporaneous experience. It was interesting to see what would happen.”
Laurel Lee and the Escapees recently opened for rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall. Her band “put their best professional foot forward,” always their goal unless they are playing more laid-back venues like Shantytown that allow for a certain amount of experimentation.
The band has recorded two CDs in local studios – Eastward Pioneer and Showdown – featuring songs that were born of Laurel Lee’s own personal experiences. Over time, she said she began to sew more common threads into her phrasing to echo not just her own frustrations, but those that
might appeal to the average audience participant. “I realized, as a musician, there is more topical matter to choose from,” she says, “You can’t just play for catharsis. You have to get other people involved.”
Laurel Lee and the Escapees will perform on November 11 at the free Veteran’s Day Concert and Picnic event at Metropolitan Park and will close the day with a special performance at St. Cyprian’s Church in St. Augustine. The band plans to record a third batch of songs after the fi rst of the year. - EU Jacksonville

Jacksonville band Laurel Lee and the Escapees have come a long way since playing at First Coast bars and taverns.
The "indy country" band performed for 40 minutes in front of about 100 people Wednesday night at Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, opening for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Wanda Jackson.
"It's like opening for Tony Bennett in my world," said Laurel Lee, lead singer for the band.
Lee, a native of Oregon, said that in the 1990s she used to stand in for Jackson to help Jackson's band warm up before the singer got into town.
Lee has performed as a musician for the last 12 years. She moved from Oregon to Jacksonville in 2006 to "get some sunshine and warmer weather," she said.
Her husband, from Washington, D.C., spent summers in Jacksonville, so they decided to move there.
While she lives and works as a substitute teacher in the St. Augustine area, she and her Jacksonville band mates predominately perform in the River City.
The Escapees of the band all have strong musical backgrounds, she said.
Guitarist Don Bealle has played for numerous bands over the past three decades.
Bassist John Mortensen, who has played in a wide range of genres, was the first musician Lee--who previously had a West Coast group of Escapees-- brought into her Florida band.
Cameron Wick, a graduate of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, is a trained jazz drums musician.
Dolly Penland, who sings harmony, left her band Dollyweed to join the Escapees.
Scott Murray plays the pedal steel guitar, and Phillip Pan plays the violin.
Laurel Lee and the Escapees have produced three albums-- one by the first band in Oregon and two by the Florida group.
The first was recorded in 2005 titled "Why Don't We Don't Get Married". The second album was "Eastward Pioneer" recorded in 2007 in Orange Park. The latest album was recorded last year in Jacksonville titled "Showdown".
Lee said she particularly enjoys playing "Sorrow" and "Holding You to Blame."
"It's a simple song, but it has it's own little volcano behind it," Lee said of "Holding You to Blame."
Lee said the best thing about performing with the Escapees is simply being consumed by the experience.
"I get lost in it," she said. "It's like being in a play of real life."
Next up for Laurel Lee and the Escapees on the First Coast is performing at SALUTE, the first first-ever Veterans Day concert and picnic to take place at Metro Park following the annual Veterans Day parade in downtown Jacksonville.
For more information on Laurel Lee and the Escapees, visit www.laurelleemusic.com.

Sarah A. Henderson
sarah@opcfla.com
904-686-3941

- Ponte Vedra Recorder

It's "Showdown" time for Laurel Lee and The Escapees and her alt-country fans.

Expect a hoedown at The Sinclair, 521 W. Forsyth St., tonight as they celebrate the release of their album, the first in about three years.

Admission is $5, and the show starts about 9pm.

"Showdown" offers the laughs and stomp-worthy tracks that crowds have come to expect from the St. Augustine group.

I'll share some song titles to give you an idea of Lee's humor.

"Why Don't We Don't Get Married?" is one of her older songs, which makes it especially funny that the new album features "Aren't You Sorry Now?" The latter is for the poor soul who did get married (Don't worry, honey, I'm not referring to myself.) Another great title: "(Without a Man) I'm a Rabid Dog." - Florida Times Union

March 13-19, 2007 written by Claire Clark themail@folioweekly.com

This is intended as a compliment: Jacksonville songwriter Laurel Lee's wry country music sounds like literary fiction backed by the Heartbreakers. She's a skillful lyricist and novice guitarist wo elicits vivid images. Even a slot machine sounds plaintive when she sings: A redhead lady in a wig plays with that damn machine/Smiles like she's really hot when it goes ding, ding, ding/That cigarette, that four point bet, keeps her organized/If she keeps doubling her points she'll avoid her own mind. Although classified as indie country, Lee's sweet-tempered, ironic tunes are inspired by the hard knocks of Portland, Ore.'s youth culture, not the coal mine. Because Lee's art (she's also been a painter) springs from her emotions, she didn't start songwriting until she hit 30 and found she needed a new medium. "The necessity of catharsis is different when you're 20 than when you're 35," says Lee. "You have different things you're trying to express. People in their 20s have a lot of physical energy they've gotta get out. Then you have other things happen in your life. You have your heart broken. You can't get a job. You have to live in little hovels with people you don't like and people who don't treat you the way they say they're gonna treat you. I was enjoying my catharsis as a young person by going to shows and dancing and riding my bike." When Lee worked in a Portland guitar store, she boned up on sound production but never learned how to play. "I couldn't actually pick up a guitar to play without some Eric Clapton wannabe physically taking the guitar from me to show me something," she says. It wasn't until Lee got a job at a pizza shop that she met some guys she was "comfortable making noise with." What began as jams evolved into the reflective, lyrical sound that transformed Lee from Portland scenster to regular player. She cut the album "Why Don't We Don't Get Married?" in 2005, shortly before she relocated to Jacksonville, lured by the sunshine and her husband's family ties. Lee's more recent material is inspired by her move to the South. While the bar-band culture of the Jacksonville music scene isn't always receptive to original music, Lee's commitment to style and subject keeps her from playing familiar covers or imitating other artists. "I still have a lot of things to say," Lee grins, "Some of them are funny, and some of them are really sore." - Folio Weekly

Married to the Music
Kara Pound, Folio Weekly, March 4-10, 2007

Local songwriter Laurel Lee would rather tell you exactly what's on her mind than beat around the bush with metaphors. Laurel Lee and the Escapee's new album, "Eastward Pioneer" is full of the same sort of declarative statements that populated Lee's 2005 debut, "Why Don't We Don't Get Married". Lee pummels the listener with her ideas from the album opener to the final strum of her acoustic guitar. Noticeably absent from this album, however, are songs about heartache, a dominate theme in her first CD. Lee recently talked with Folio Weekly about chicken bombs and telling it like it is.

Folio Weekly: "Eastward Pioneer". Is this title song about your move to Jacksonville from Oregon?
Laurel Lee: Yeah, the push and pull of needing to get away, and still really missing them terribly. You know it's awfully sad. I miss my sisters a lot.

F.W.: Is the line "I don't expect recycling yet, but the coffee's pretty good" a poke at Jacksonville's lack of greenness?
L.L.: [Laughs.] It is. You know there are certain social things that I really took for granted in Oregon. I can see [Jacksonville's] good intention toward recycling, but people largely don't recycle. Everywhere that I've worked in the last two years has said, "We're gonna start a recycling project." But it never gets started.
Now that I'm here, I don't expect them to have the same expectations as I do. They should recycle. I recycle. I support recycling, I don't necessarily expect that everybody's gonna be recycling. But the coffee's pretty good because I'm here in Springfield, and I smell Maxwell House. It's so great, I love that. It's a great town smell. I mean, that and the paper mill, it's pretty great.

F.W.: So you'll be relocating again soon, in search of friendlier climes? Like Nashville?
L. L.: I love playing in Jacksonville. I want y'all to know that. It's always been a goal [to go to Nashville]. I've never been to Nashville. [We drove] from Oregon... and I've never had the chance to visit the neighboring cities. Like, a day's drive from here you can get to so many places. Nashville, of course, is kind of the mecca of country singers. I've always wanted to go.

F.W.: You have a song titled "Chicken Bomb". In it, you describe the "milk and chicken bomb" as "the worst thing on the planet." What's the story behind that?
L.L.: The chicken bomb: You put raw chicken in a jar and put milk and seal it, and eventually, the bacteria will force the jar to explode. I don't know the science, it won't explode for several months. So, at that point, it's quite disgusting. And it won't grow unless it's in kind of a warm temperature. So [it's] been growing in a jar for months, [then] it explodes and smells really bad.
The chicken bomb makes people laugh and it makes me laugh, and I appreciate being part of the North Florida folklore. You know, that I get to take part in that is totally cool. And that one was just given to me, so how could I not write it?
When I first moved to Florida, I heard about the chicken bomb from one of our friends, and I was like, "Yeah, right, that sounds ridiculous." It's supposed to be a real thing, and I thought it [wasn't]. I thought it was a joke to make fun of me for not being from here.
Wouldn't it be great if all wars were fought with something more organic, like chicken bombs instead of nuclear bombs? It would be harmful, but it wouldn't probably hurt anybody.

F.W.: Yeah, but the whole world would smell like New Jersey then, wouldn't it?
L.L.: That's right. We have to get a little more creative about our vengeance. - Folio Weekly

Local Round-Up
By Jay Horton
NW Paper, July, 2005

Laurel Lee and the Escapees sound enough like the best of classic Nashville that you'd check the jukebox, surprised the music's not instantly familiar. The songs seem to be shruggingly-platinum floor-fillers, but Laurel Lee's vocals attain a keening, homespun edge emotive worlds away from Music city. And the characters that inhabit those songs betray a strength and self-knowledge absolutely of the moment. It's that blend of new old country and third wave feminism (her husband shall take Lee's name) that makes upcoming debut album Why Don't We Don't Get Married such a treasure. Too many young artists try out the genre with all the dignity of gutterpunks passing around grampa's cowboy hat. The Escapees - drummer Marci Martinez (Team Dresch, Vegas Beat), bassist Sean Fong (Ape Shape), fiddler Neal Gilpin (Belmont Street Octet) and guitarists Jesse Richtel and Greg Keil - despite wildly eclectic histories, play as tightly and haplessly-authentic as a dust bowl troupe inexplicably and not unhappily transplanted to post-millennial Portland. Born country, northwestern by the grace of God. - NW Paper

Laurel Lee Welch -- Pioneer
Skirt! Magazine
June, 2008

"I'm such an ego-maniac when it comes to performing," says Laurel Lee, songstress and staple of her band Laurel Lee and the Escapees. She moved from Oregon to Jacksonville two and half years ago for a dose of sunshine and two write her album "Eastward Pioneer". She frequents European Street Cafe and Twisted Sisters, venues she values for showcasing her lyrically structured songs with low key atmospheres. "I sing because it's cathartic," she confesses, "I sing because I have something to say and I want to let people know that they're not alone." In college she helped launch a radio station, and at age 29 she taught herself to play guitar; she still sees herself as a work in progress. "I will never be done. I will never take a break." Learn what Laurel Lee's song "I Don't Miss Missing You" is about at Jacksonville.skirt.com. - Skirt! Magazine

LAUREL LEE

www.myspace.com/laurelleeandtheescapees

Laurel Lee and the Escapees is a St. Augustine indie band that harks back to classic country. Lee sings, plays guitar and writes the lyrics, which tend to be wry and quirky.

5 best shows I've seen by my musical elders

1. Cab Calloway, Fox Theater, Portland, Ore., circa 1992: I dressed in my best flapper dress and walked to the bus stop. My friend, Sean, drove by in his 1960s Cadillac and took me to the door of the beautiful Fox Theater, kind of like the Florida Theatre. I was, by far, the youngest person in a room of 1,000. Cab was handsome and in complete control. I was thrilled to answer "hi-de-ho" and felt timeless.

2. Link Wray, Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Ore., circa 1998: The room was hot and full of people who were there to get down. When he started playing "Rumble," the room broke out in near pandemonium.

3. Buena Vista Social Club, Fox Theater, Portland, Ore., circa 2000: I love Cuban music from the 1920s-1940s. Minor keys, a bit of swing, words of love and a sense of warmth attract me. ...To hear them singing and playing music as though it was brand new brought tears to my eyes for over an hour.

4. Ray Charles, Chinook Winds Casino, Lincoln City, Ore., circa 2002: He played for 45 minutes, sitting at his piano and singing. The show stopped looking like him at a piano and became waves, a heart massage and a thorough dusting off of the frustrations of life. Even as an older man, Ray's live music was a therapeutic exorcism.

5. George Jones, Chinook Winds Casino, Lincoln City, Ore., circa 2005: George is known for not arriving to his shows, so I worried I wouldn't see the best country singer of all time. His warm, tremulous delivery transfixed me. - Jacksonville Times-Union