page_title: Lee Rocker
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Lee Rocker / Biography / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Lee Rocker performing at Memphis International Rockabilly Festival
context_page_description: Lee Rocker is an American double bass player. He is a member of the rockabilly revival band Stray Cats.
  He is the son of the classical clarinetists Stanley Drucker and Naomi Drucker. As a child, he played the cello and later learned bass guitar.
context_section_description: Drucker's school friends included James McDonnell and Brian Setzer. The three of them played together regularly and widened their musical interests to include the blues and rockabilly. Drucker also learned to play the double bass to incorporate the sounds of blues and rockabilly on the acoustic instrument. The three of them formed the group Stray Cats in 1979. McDonnell took on the stage name of "Slim Jim Phantom", and Drucker devised his own stage name to "Lee Rocker". Rocker evolved his own style of slap-bass playing with the group.
  Rocker and Stray Cats sold nearly 10 million albums and garnered twenty three gold and platinum certified records worldwide, and made them a mainstay on MTV. In addition to Stray Cats, Lee Rocker, and Phantom, Rocker & Slick albums, Rocker has recorded or performed with Carl Perkins, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Keith Richards, John Fogerty, and Scotty Moore. Rocker was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982, as was his father, they are the second father-son duo to be nominated for a Grammy in the same year. He is considered to be an influential upright bassist in rock and roll.
  Accompanied by Slim Jim Phantom and guitarist Earl Slick, Rocker formed the band Phantom, Rocker & Slick and recorded two albums for EMI Records titled Phantom, Rocker & Slick and Cover Girl. The song "Men Without Shame" landing Rocker back on MTV and in the charts. For Black Top Records, Rocker released the albums Big Blue (1994) and Atomic Boogie Hour (1995). He has also recorded for Alligator Records.
  He released the album, Bulletproof, in 2003. His other albums included Black Cat Bone, released in August 2007, which featured Brophy Dale on guitar and Jimmy Sage on drums. Buzz Campbell (Hot Rod Lincoln and Sha Na Na) joined the band three years prior and gave them a Gretsch guitar sound. In 2011, Lee released an EP called The Cover Sessions which features cover versions of songs such as the John Lennon/Paul McCartney song "Come Together", Elton John's "Honky Cat", and the Allman Brothers song "Ramblin' Man". In addition to recording and touring, Rocker has hosted a radio show on KXFM-LP called Rumble and Twang with Lee Rocker. Lee Rocker joined the cast of the Broadway hit Million Dollar Quartet as bassist Clayton Perkins, the brother of Sun Records recording artist Carl Perkins in a twelve-show run from January 21 through 31, 2011. He topped off the show with a special encore performance with the cast and an appearance on New York Today.
  Lee Rocker's latest band consists of Buzz Campbell (electric guitar & banjo), Larry Mitchel (drums), and Matthew Jordan (piano, harmonica, acoustic guitar).
caption: Lee Rocker performing at Memphis International Rockabilly Festival, August 2015
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