Lee was many things, but first, he was my brother. I knew him for just a few days short of 59 years. I am his sister.

What many people may remember him for is his persona as Edgar Poe on WSEA FM in Georgetown, DE during the 70s. He was the coolest. He was our underground progressive rock DJ. The hottest thing to hit Sussex County back then and maybe since. He was ahead of his time. He was a visionary.

But before all that, he was Lee, my oldest brother. Growing up, it was obvious that he was ahead of his time: he skipped a grade in elementary school — maybe it was second grade. They simply moved him into the next grade, third grade.

As children, we grew up in the fifties and early sixties — a time when bad things did not happen to children. We walked to Rehoboth Elementary School on our own through the woods and fields across the street from our house on Robinson Drive in Rehoboth because we lived something like a quarter mile too close to the school to ride the bus. Heck, during those years, I didn’t even know school buses picked kids up. I guess I thought all of us walked to school.

We lived just a few blocks from the beach. It was our babysitter. Summer days were spent on the beach all day. We packed up our towels and our cooler and headed for Queen Street as soon as my Dad was fed breakfast and out the door to work. We came home in the afternoon, my Mom prepared dinner and often, we went back to the beach in the evenings with my Dad and our dog: first Colonel, then Spooky.

As kids, we dug tunnels in the sand under the boardwalk. Tunnels in the sand! The ever shifting sand. No one got stuck and no one got buried. Yes, we grew up as children in the fifties and early sixties when bad things did not happen to children.

Over the years, we moved a few times: from Rehoboth to Frankford, then Dagsboro. These last two towns put us in John M. Clayton school, later part of the Indian River School District. After graduating from John M. Clayton High School in ’68, Lee got a job at WSEA in Georgetown where he worked as the night time DJ bringing progressive rock music — sometimes interspersed with Aesop’s Fables — to Sussex County.

As explained by Kim T.

I have lived my entire life (60 years) on the Delmarva peninsula. During the late ’60’s and most of the ’70’s, there was a radio station in Georgetown, Delaware with the call letters WSEA. It was the FM affiliate of WJWL, the AM radio station located in the same building. When I was in junior high school and then through high school, WSEA was a rock station playing the mainstream rock music that was current at the time. Then at 9:00 pm every night until midnight, there was a DJ who called himself “Edgar Poe”. He referred to his three hour show as being “underground”, and he played a lot of album rock. A lot of it was pretty obscure. It was “Poe” who introduced me to “Tarkus” (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer). He would often play the whole 20 minute and 40 second A-side. He also played a lot of obscure Pink Floyd. I actually went out and bought the “Meddle” album because “Poe” played several tracks from that album a lot, particularly, the song “One Of These Days”. To this day, he has been the only DJ that I have ever known to play “White Bird” (It’s A Beautiful Day-1969) at least once or twice a week. Another favorite of his (apparently) was the obscure “Constipation Blues” (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – 1969) as he seemed to get that song in at least once or twice a week.

Sadly, WSEA went Disco/Top 40 in the late 70s. No place for underground rock. Lee headed to Boston where he pursued a career in the music recording industry. He subsequently relocated to NYC and was involved in the recording of music for artists from several genres as well as commercials advertising popular products. He had brief affiliations with several recording studios in the greater Manhattan area and was an acquaintance of several celebrated artists from the music industry.

Lee passed away of natural causes in his apartment in New York City on September 11, 2015. He was 64 years of age. Way too young…

“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted — Nevermore!”
~ Edgar Allan Poe