It is with immense sadness the Lee family is sharing news that Bobby Lee passed away in his home the morning of March 7, 2023.Bob died at home, listening to the Beatles, "
All You Need Is Love."
He was born Robert Paul Lee on August 4, 1949,
when his mom, Ruth Lee, was still a teen, and his dad, Paul Lee, had
just come back from fighting in the South Pacific a few years before.
Bob was the oldest of six kids, all of them musical and creative in many
ways.
Bob was a poet, too, and felt somewhat out of
place in the hills of Western Pennsylvania. He told me a few weeks ago,
"It was no place for a sensitive boy who wrote poetry." He also hated
the winters.
1967 was the Summer of Love and the Beatles released Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Bob felt drawn away. One day in fall,
he left a note for his mom and hitch-hiked across the country, to San
Francisco. And he never really went back home for very long after that.
He loved California. He loved the music scene. He saw lots of bands in small venues before they were really big names.
In 1979, he moved the family up to Petaluma,
California. Bob worked at the Mesa Boogie amp factory in Petaluma. He
was in several bands. At some point in the early 1980's, the first
incarnation of the Steel Guitar Forum came to be - he created a printed
newsletter for musicians.
Bob really enjoyed making connections with people
through music. The more the internet grew, the more opportunity he saw
to connect everyone in the world who played steel guitar. He had a
vision. The home page of the Steel Guitar Forum says that this iteration of the Forum has
been going since 1997.
The community grew as fast as he could write the code. He asked new members to contribute $2.00 along with their membership application. He believed that, if you made people pay a small
amount of money, and everyone had to use their real names, people would
be basically nice to one another. And he was right.
Today, the fee for a lifetime membership is $5.00.
On Tuesday morning, with his daughter Shoshanah at his side quietly singing along with "
All You Need Is Love", he took
his last breath - on the word "love".
He compared his unspoken devotion to the Steel Guitar Forum community, and especially to steel guitar players around the world, as being akin to the Beatles lyrics:
"
And in the end,
the love you take
is equal to the love
you make."
And he told his friends and family that he did, in fact, feel the love.
(This narrative was written by Shoshanah and adapted here by Lori)
Thank you!Mrs. Jean Lee would like to receive condolence cards at 303 Ranch House Dr., Cloverdale, CA 95425
