Jack Lee (musician)

Jack Lee (born March 25, 1952) is an American songwriter and musician best known for composing the song "Hanging on the Telephone", which was covered by the new wave band Blondie, and the song "Come Back and Stay", covered by the singer Paul Young.

Alongside Paul Collins (later of The Beat) and Peter Case (later of The Plimsouls), Lee formed the seminal, yet short-lived Los Angeles power pop trio The Nerves. Lee played guitar for the group - favouring a thin, unembellished, almost rhythmic playing style - along with composing and singing most of the group's songs. The band, originally based in San Francisco, made the move to Los Angeles in 1976, and began putting on a series of self-promoted and self-financed concerts, providing a focal gathering point for many members of L.A.'s nascent punk scene, as well as giving many of L.A.'s early punk bands their initial shows (The Weirdos, The Screamers and The Dils, among others). This 'Do It Yourself' aesthetic (although not usually associated with music extant pre-punk) was also reflected in the Nerves' self-financed and self-released 1976 EP - the four songs from which (two of them Lee compositions) all going on to much-deserved reverence, if not mainstream recognition, amongst punk and power pop circles. Though in hindsight influential, this self-contained recording and gigging strategy most likely placed undue stress upon the relationship between the three band members. The Nerves' existence, always tenuous, finally disintegrated in the aftermath of another self-financed venture - this time a cross-country tour in the summer of 1977, with the band covering almost twenty-five thousand miles in a single 1969 Ford LTD Wagon and playing with such notables as the Ramones, the Diodes and Mink DeVille. Though the press surrounding the band was nearly always positive and newer material sounded strong, it was not enough to hold the band together. The Nerves finally tore apart in 1978, less than a year before Blondie would turn one of Jack Lee and the Nerves' songs into a new wave classic and bona fide chart hit.

...
Wikipedia