R.I.P. Alvin Lee

Alvin Lee

R.I.P. Alvin Lee

Alvin Lee

Alvin Lee, the British blues-rock guitar hero who led the late-’60s band Ten Years After, died today in England, as Billboard reports, after complications from a routine surgery. He was 68.

Lee, born in Nottingham, formed his band the Jaybirds as a teenager, and the band played regularly at the Star-Club in Hamburg around the same time the gestating Beatles were doing the same thing. They returned to England after a few years, changing their name to Jaybird and eventually to Ten Years After, releasing their first album in 1967.

The band proved to be especially popular in America, where they toured constantly. They played a set at Woodstock, and their 11-minute version of “I’m Going Home” took up a pretty huge chunk of Michael Wadleigh’s documentary Woodstock. After releasing a handful of albums, the band broke up in 1973, and Lee went onto a prodigious solo career, working with people like George Harrison, Mick Fleetwood, Bo Diddley, and Peter Frampton. His records were still charting as late as the mid-’80s, and he released his final album just last year.

Below, watch that “I’m Going Home” performance from Woodstock.

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