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Lee Gates

Powerhouse Guitar Slinger

Lee Gates was born in Mississippi and moved to Milwaukee as a teenager where he has been playing his brand of down home blues for the past 50 years. Blues legend Albert Collins is his first cousin and you can hear the family influence in Lee Gates' fluid guitar style and tone. In 1959 Lee Gates migrated to Milwaukee where he found work performing with the house band at Wilson's Club at 10th and Center Streets for 15 years straight. It is not until 1974 that he met his legendary cousin Albert Collins. "My daddy's brother had a lot of kids out there in Texas. I never met them as a child, but we all knew of each other. When Albert Collins came to Milwaukee I showed him around and we did some gigs together. Every time he came to town we would go out and eat supper together, he was a good friend to me."

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