In irreplaceable fixture in the local music scene, blues guitarist, singer and club owner Tee Dee Young has delighted listeners for more than 50 years. Officially recognized by the city of Lexington, with Mayor Jim Gray’s 2018 declaration of September 13 as Tee Dee Young Day, he has also won the prestigious King of Beale Street Award, has been a finalist in the International Blues Competition and has received proclamations from both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly.
Soon, Young will get some additional much-deserved recognition from his home state, with his induction into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame later this month. Located in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, near the Renfro Valley Entertainment Center, the Hall of Fame has been recognizing noteworthy Kentucky musicians since 2002, with a biennial induction ceremony and a museum displaying relics and memorabilia highlighting the lives and careers of its inductees.
“Our mission is to preserve Kentucky’s rich musical heritage but also teach others about the history and how to perform, to continue to have those traditions passed on,” explained Jessica Blankenship, the executive director of the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Young will join fellow 2022 inductees in a performance to commemorate the new class of members on Oct. 28. (Young and his band will also perform at the Chevy Chase Street Fair in Lexington, which takes place on Euclid Avenue near High Street on Oct. 22.)
To watch Young in action, one might suspect him to be communicating with some sort of outside force or power through his transportive guitar playing, which appears effortless on the surface. But his immense talent and unique style are in fact the result of decades of hard work, dedication and playing amongst a wide variety of settings and players over the years. A touring musician since he was a teenager, Young continues to play regular local and regional festivals, club shows and special events, and each week he invites a variety of different musicians from the community to join him and his band on the stage of his downtown blues club for a song or two.
Photo by Mick Jeffries
But Young’s first and most influential exposure to music came while growing up in Lexington’s Pralltown neighborhood, where as a kid he regularly communed with a ragtag group of older neighbors as they set up to jam near the railroad tracks. In true jug band fashion, they would improvise with makeshift instruments: a box guitar, a bass made of a washtub with a single string, spoons – and, yes, an actual jug.
“I’d run down there every day after school,” Young recalled, his signature smile lighting up his face. “They’d be drinkin’ and laughin’ and doing their thing.”
At the helm of the crew was Mr. Harrison, a guitar player with whom Young was entranced.
“He didn’t play with a guitar pick, he played with a pocket knife – it sounded like that guitar was saying words,” he said. “I memorized his fingering, the sound, everything.”
Mr. Harrison took note of his young fan as well, generously lending Young his guitar so he could take it home and practice at night. Young’s early music education came from committing to memory each note that Mr. Harrison played, then replicating it at home with his borrowed guitar. Soon, Young’s late brother, George – a “musical genius,” as Young describes him – decided he and his brothers had the chops to get a band together. With another brother on drums and some friends from around the neighborhood, Young’s first band, The Young Brothers, formed in the 1960s.
A local manager took notice – and ultimately, advantage – of the talented young band. The Young Brothers were soon hitting the road, opening up for the likes of the Jackson 5, James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, and Aretha Franklin at local and regional gigs. Locally, the group played at bygone venues that included Up Jump the Devil (located on Newtown Pike) and Flame (off East Third Street); when touring, “we were the young kids on what they called the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit,’” Young said, referring to the collection of performance venues that were known to be safe and welcoming to African American performers in the pre-civil rights era.
“We would come off the road sometimes on a Monday morning and they’d take us straight to school,” he said.
Their relationship with that manager soured, Young explained, when it became apparent he was keeping all the money he’d promised them for himself. But the band continued to evolve, with members playing together in various forms. They reached a new level in their sound once Young traded in the money he’d saved raking leaves and washing cars for his first electric guitar (that guitar now resides in the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum).
Fast forward 20 years or so, another significant notch in Young’s music career came when he opened his own blues club, Tee Dee’s Progressive Club on Second Street. He was working three jobs at the time, including a construction job in the area, when he noticed a “For Sale” sign in the window of a building on the corner of Second Street and Elm Tree Lane one day.
“I didn’t have no money,” he said with a laugh. “But I called the guy, Joe Rosenburg, who owned it.”
The building needed significant work, Young recalled – during their first meeting, he said it was raining outside, but there was more water coming down inside than out. After working various angles to get the loan needed to purchase the building, Young made the purchase in 1983. With the help of his brother and some other friends, he set to work on turning the space into a club of his own in best way he could given budget constraints.
“We started out selling potato chips, hot dogs and pop,” he explained. “We got tables at K-mart, and the tables I built by taking a piece of plyboard and adding a little stem like a Christmas tree.”
Spontaneous Combustion was one of the bands that Young (bottom right) performed in with his brothers, George (bottom left) and Buster (middle back row). The band is pictured here at the Pralltown railroad tracks where Young learned to play. Photo furnished
In the early years, music at the club was initially provided by deejays, but soon Young’s longtime keyboard player, Bruce Smith (the two have played together for over 40 years), said “let’s get together and play the blues.”
Though he had been playing music for 20 years, Young’s style had mostly lent itself to R&B up to that point — his response to Smith’s proposition was simply, ‘I don’t know anything about the blues!’ But once he acquiesced, and he and Smith started jamming the blues together with an ever-growing cast of additional musicians, a new musical pathway for Young opened, through trial-and-error.
“That’s how I developed my own style,” he explained, “because I didn’t know anything about blues.”
The jam sessions/rehearsals quickly started attracting a crowd, and today, more than 30 years later, Young’s band continues to “rehearse” at Tee Dee’s Club every Monday night – to a packed audience of musicians and general public. The format of the evening usually includes Young playing a couple songs at the beginning of the evening before asking the audience if there are any musicians in the house. Once he gets a sense of who plays what, he said he “puts the whole package together,” inviting musicians up to the stage one or two at a time to join his band or play their own song. The evening culminates with an energetic set from Young and his band.
It’s a unique, community-driven musical experience that has shaped Young in ways he couldn’t have predicted. The weekly jam sessions have not only helped him develop his unique style, but they have also provided the community the opportunity to collaborate and to experience live music in a way not found anywhere else in Lexington.
“I don’t play like B.B. [King], I don’t play like Buddy Guy; I don’t play like none of these other guitars – I play the way I think it should be,” he said. “Might be right, might be wrong, but it works.”
All the while, Young keeps his musical beginnings and his family – all of whom have passed away by now – close to his heart, especially his brother George, who was so influential in his early career.
“My brother, he’s gone, but he said, ‘Don’t you ever change your style, because I’ll know you anywhere,’” Young said. “That’s the reason I haven’t changed my style.”
Upcoming performances:
Chevy Chase Street Fair • Sat. Oct. 22, 3-9 p.m. • Euclid Avenue near High Street
Kentucky Music Hall of Fame 2022 Induction Ceremony • Sat., Oct. 28, 6 p.m. • Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, Mt. Vernon, Kentucky
Lexington blues guitarist Tee Dee Young opened his downtown nightclub, Tee Dee’s Progressive Club, on the corner of Second Street and Elm Tree Lane in the 1980s. The club attracts a crowd most Monday nights, when it hosts its community-oriented blues sessions. Photo by Mick Jeffries