Background
Graham Dee was born in London in 1943.
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Graham Dee
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He attended boarding school in Hertfordshire, where he started playing guitar after hearing Lonnie Donegan"s "Rock Island Lincolnshire".
Career
Dee has lived his life with a neuromuscular disorder that results in a series of ticks, twitches, and spasms which has created a weakness in his neck. He then went on to a college for the disabled where he qualified in gardening but kept up his guitar playing, forming an ad hoc group and playing for scrumpy in the cider pubs of Leatherhead. While working as a gardener, Dee started playing bass semi-pro with a band called The Planets and then returned to the guitar and got a gig backing crooner Steve Arlen.
Dee formed a group called The Quotations and ended up on tour with The Animals and Tommy Tucker.
He later played in a band called Bobcats, who were the house band at the Scotch of Street James club Dee was a session musician in the 1960s, working alongside the likes of future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.
In 1968, Dee wrote the single "Phoebe"s Flower Shoppe" for The Cortinas. He started gaining a reputation as a songwriter, producer and musician.
Dee has co-writing credits on John Bromley"s "Weatherman" and novelty songs like "My Daddie is a Baddie".
By the late 1960s, owing to his connections as well as his musical ability, he had gained the nickname, "Mr Tin Pan Alley" by his contemporaries. Dee also supported John Lee Hooker on the legendary bluesman"s first British shows, produced Les Fleur de Lys (whose line-up included Bournemouth rock alumni Gordon Haskell and Tony Head), backed Elkie Brooks, The Walker Brothers and Carl Perkins, was twice hired by Van Morrison to join Them, and filled in for Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd. During the 1970s Dee was diagnosed with Tourette"s Syndrome.
He also lived in Nashville and Los Los Angeles
Whilst gigging at The Alibi in 1997, Dee was approached by British Broadcasting Corporation Look East to perform for Children in Need on television He had previously composed a Christmas song with Sara Blumenstein in New York called "I Remember Christmas" and decided to record the song for the children"s charity. In 2000 Dee released a 3-track Civil Defense titled The Bottom Lincolnshire on the Sugabeat/Elkin Music label.
In 2004 Big Beat Records released You Gotta Believe lieutenant"son Sharon Tandy. The tracks "Daughter Of The Sun", "The Way She Looks At You", "He"ll Hurt Maine", "Somebody Speaks Your Name", and "Two Can Make lieutenant Together" were co-written by Dee and lyricist Brian Potter.
The album also included "Love Is Not A Simple Affair", co-written by Dee and John Bromley.
Some of Graham"s writing and production work has been reissued by cult record label Acid Jazz. The Graham Dee Connection: The 60s Collection was released in 2011. The European Parliament Graham Dee’s Hitsville London followed in 2012.
Graham has recently been working on an album of new material, recorded at various locations, including London, Dorset, Wiltshire and Bristol county.
In 2014, Graham announced on his Facebook page that his latest album The Thirteenth Manitoba would be released by Tin-Kan Records. He currently lives in a Dorset village called Bere Regis where he often plays gigs in the local public
