Today, we’d like to introduce you to Lee Mays.
Lee, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
As far as my musical training as a singer, songwriter, and producer is concerned, there was very little training since I taught myself how to play guitar and piano and write songs. At the age of 9, my father, who was a Baptist preacher, asked me to learn to play the piano for his small congregation. With my two index fingers, I played whatever I heard on the piano.
Although each chord that I played consisted of only two notes instead of three or more, it was adequate enough to make the church music work and make the congregation happy. When I was around 15, I bought a cheap guitar and began to learn to play. As far as my vocal training is concerned, I took only a few lessons from a voice professor at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, which was only 30 miles from my hometown of Hereford, Texas.
That was 50 years ago, which means that everything I learned as a vocalist back then had long been forgotten in the second half of my life. I quit traveling as a musical evangelist in the early eighties, and when I returned to the music business after a 30-year absence, I essentially had to teach myself to be a singer once again. When I was a college freshman in 1970, I began writing contemporary Christian songs. During that period of my life beginning at the age of 19, and for more than 10 years, I traveled to colleges, high schools, churches, military bases, and prisons to perform my music.
Throughout the first half of my life, I used my legal first name, “Percy.” Thus I was billed as Percy Mays in the 1970s and 1980s, whereas today I am known as Lee Mays with “Lee” being my legal middle name. During my shows during the seventies and eighties, I would also include some stand-up comedy in the style of Bill Cosby.
Since that time, I have dropped the comedy routines, but I still perform my original music today. I do not do so much Christian music, but mostly in the style of smooth jazz. My music has been described by some music critics as “romantic jazz.”
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Of course, it has not been a smooth road. And I don’t think that there are very many artists who can legitimately say that it has been a smooth road throughout their musical career. The biggest obstacle can be getting work and making money.
Oftentimes, I have performed concerts where I paid only my band members but was unable to pay myself. At the beginning of my career as an artist, I worked for as little as $25 a show or simply a meal. Back in the 1970s, I was in a small Southern Baptist church in Ohio. After my performance, the pastor of the church told me that he would take me down to the nearest burger joint and buy me a hamburger.
That was my pay. Even though you might feel slighted by this kind of treatment, you have to be thankful that you were able to share your music with people you’ve never met and that you were able to deliver a message to them. I try to write melodies that are simple and easy to remember. My best example of a simple melody that is easy to remember is the song that I wrote in 1970 called “Smile.”
Once you hear it, it sticks in your head. And if the melody sticks in your head, then so will the lyrics: “Smile, smile, smile. Show your happiness inside out. When Jesus is your friend, frowning ends, and that’s a lot to smile about”. When you’re able to write hooks with melodies that are simple and easy for listeners to follow, then your chances of having a hit song are much better than writing songs that are musically complicated.
So, my point is that even though you don’t always get the amount of money you want for a gig, if you’re able to make an impression on your audience, then that alone should be worth it. Other obstacles I’ve experienced have been due to racial discrimination and the humiliation I’ve experienced because of the color of my skin.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe you can tell us more about your work next?
I am best known internationally for writing and producing the self-made 1976 Percy Mays “Shine Your Love” LP album. The genre was contemporary Christian music. Even though I was not signed by a major Christian record label, the title song, “Shine Your Love,” was played on radio stations in Amarillo, Lubbock, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta.
Shortly after the release of the album in February 1976, “Shine Your Love” was the #1 most requested song on Christian radio station KWAS for eight consecutive weeks. In 1978, the gospel group The Cruse Family released “Shine Your Love” as a single on their “Transformation” album on Word Records. The single contributed to The Cruse Family winning a Dove Award for Best Album of the Year. More recently, the “Shine Your Love” music has been viewed online on Bing over 13 million times.
Today, I am known by my legal middle name, Lee. Since 2010, as Lee Mays, I have traveled internationally as a concert artist in the genre of smooth jazz. I have performed concerts in the most prestigious jazz clubs in Moscow, St Petersburg, Siberia, Kyiv, Minsk, Riga, Milan, and Rome. In Italy, the songs from the 2015 Lee Mays “Real Love” CD album can be heard in four Italian films.
As a result of my music in director Frances Sapphire’s feature film, “La Carrozza dei Sogni” (The Carriage of Dreams), I have received the award for “Best Musical Score” at four different international film festivals.
What makes you happy?
What makes me happy in regards to what I do is knowing that so many people around the world are listening to and enjoying the sounds of my original music. This makes having the ability to be a songwriter a very special, God-given privilege.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reverbnation.com/leemays
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leemaysmusic?igsh=MXVpb2NrMXo5ZmQzdg==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lmaysmusic?mibextid=ZbWKwL
Image Credits
Ethan Yizong Xie, Alan Mercer, and Tatiana Shcherbakova
