at the end of the night!”
Who’s Talkin’ Out There? continues Don Lee’s unique musical
style. His songs twist and turn;
they frequently start and stop,
never seeming to follow normal
musical progressions — at least not
compared to the songs that one
would typically hear today on the
radio. To Lee though, the songs
embody the influences of artists
like Squeeze, Steely Dan, Elton
John, Billy Joel, Joe Jackson, and
the Beatles who inspired him. He
thinks people sometimes give him
too much credit for using a lot of
chord changes. He doesn’t see his
music as something different at all.
“I probably have a verse melody,
a chorus melody, and a bridge
melody,” explained Lee. “That’s
three basic melodies. I’m not going to say it’s overly simply, but
it’s not overly complicated. In the
history of music you do hear this
quite a lot, but at this point in time
maybe not. I always come from
the school of thought that you do
the best thing you can as opposed
New Jersey Stage
Photo by Steve Stanger
to sound like everyone else. I
want to have my own sound. If
you do what’s big on the radio
right now you’re already behind
the curve.”
Lee lives in Freehold where he
has spent most of his life. While
90% of the musicians from New
Jersey are often compared to
Freehold’s favorite son, Lee’s vocals do not sound anything like
December 2014
pg 110