Jack Lee, a member of The Nerves and best known for his song ‘Hanging On The Telephone’, covered by Blondie, has died at age 71.
The Nerves formed in Los Angeles in 1974. The Power Pop band features Lee, Peter Case and Paul Collins. Case released his first solo album on Geffen in 1986 and has had more than a dozen albums since, most recently ‘Doctor Moan’ in 2023. Paul Collins formed the band The Beat and released their first album on Columbia in 1979. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day added The Beat song ‘Walking Out On Love’ to the American Idiot musical.
The Nerves were considered the start of a lineage that went on to include The Knack and The Plimsouls.
Case and Collins reformed without Lee for shows in 2012 where they performed the music of The Nerves. They did not call themselves The Nerves because of Lee’s absence from the line-up. At the Austin gig, Bill Murray got up to introduce them. Murray featured Collins’ group The Beat in his movie Caddyshack.
Jack Lee was also the songwriter of Paul Young’s ‘Come Back and Stay’.
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