Lee Dresser

Guitarist, harmonica player and vocalist Lee Dresser joined with high school friends, Willie Craig and Fred Fletcher, to form a rockabilly band, The Krazy Kats, in 1957. They released several impressive recordings including a single, "Beat Out My Love" b/w "Wiggley Little Mama" in 1959 and a full-length album, Movin' Out!, in 1964. More than four decades later, Dresser and the Krazy Kats remain among the hardest working Midwestern bands. Inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, in 1999, they've performed their covers of classic tunes from the 1950s and ‘60s at an estimated more than three thousand shows.

The son of a government worker father and a ballerina mother, Dresser lost both parents at an early age and was brought up by his maternal grandparents in Moberly, Missouri. Teaching himself to play guitar, at the age of fourteen, he didn't begin performing seriously until the mid-1960s, when he was drafted into the United States Army, after briefly attending Moberly Junior College and Missouri University. Sent to Viet Nam, where Craig had been sent the previous year, he developed a solo act as a singer-songwriter.

Relocating to Los Angeles, after receiving his honorary discharge, Dresser found employment as a guitarist and harmonica player for Danny Thomas, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard and the Oak Ridge Boys. Signing with Capitol, he recorded several singles in the early-1970s and represented the United States in the World Popular Song Festival, in Tokyo, in 1972. His vocals were heard on the soundtrack of 1975 film, The Adventures Of The Wilderness Family, and during the Country Bear Jamboree show at Disney World. His songs were covered by Pat Boone, Bobby Sherman, the Osmonds, Trini Lopez and Ray Price.

Despite his success in southern California, Dresser missed his former musical partners. When the Krazy Kats were revived, in 1980, he began shuttling back and forth, by plane, between California and Missouri. As the band's schedule intensified, he moved back to Missouri in 1985.