Arthur Lee Maye (December 11, 1934 – July 17, 2002) was one of the top 20 doo-wop leads of the '50s, possessor of a beautiful tenor voice with just the right amount of pleading thrown in. As well as his music career he was a professional baseball player for thirteen years, which necessitated his recordings being made during the off-season. Although he was born in Alabama, the family moved to Los Angeles when he was young.
During his high school years at Jefferson he was surrounded by wannabe doo-woppers. Maye's first school band was the Carmels, but they appear to have gone unrecorded. Other singers/groups to come out of the school included the Coasters, Platters, Penguins, Medallions, Jesse Belvin and Young Jessie. 1954 was to be a banner year for him. He began playing ball for the Milwaukee Braves' Boise, Idaho minor league team, and made his recording debut. He later explained, "Baseball was my first love. I could always sing at fifty, but I couldn’t play baseball at fifty."
He teamed up with ex-school buddies bass Johnny Coleman and Richard Berry (Flairs/Louie Louie etc). They cut sides for Flair Records as the "5" Hearts ("The Fine One"/"Please Please Baby") and as the Rams ("Sweet Thing"/"Rock Bottom"). Around this time he formed a group called the Crowns, whose first job was to back Berry (uncredited) on "Please Tell Me". The Los Angeles scene was an incestuous one at this time and no-one had more partners than Richard Berry, who was working concurrently with the Flairs, the Crowns and the Dreamers as well as a solo artist. The Crowns had their first release under their own name in late 1954 with "Set My Heart Free"/"I Wanna Love" on Modern.
Further releases came on the RPM subsidiary, but fed up with the meagre royalties on offer, the Crowns moved to Specialty Records with similar results. Their March 1956 single coupled the glorious "Gloria" with "Oh-Rooba-Lee". The next off-season saw Maye hook up with Johnny Otis where he sang with the Jayos, who included in their numbers, Mel Williams, another beautiful singer. They cut a series of sessions for Otis' Dig label, mainly doing cover versions. The Jayos were augmented on some of the sessions by Jesse Belvin and Richard Berry again.
Maye did the lead vocals on "Honey Love,""Earth Angel,""Gee," Only You,""At My Front Door," and "One Mint Julep". The Crowns also recorded for Dig although when the sides were released they only came out under Maye's name. The same thing happened when "Hey Pretty Girl"/"Cause You're Mine Alone" came out on Flip.
Playing baseball full-time created a time lag problem. Maye said, "When I was playing baseball all the requisite hours, I was a year behind in music, and I never got a chance to catch up with the music trend that I should have been with. I truly was behind the time, and I acknowledge that. Baseball and singing collided". He also knew that baseball prevented his going on tour to promote his songs.
Arthur Lee Maye's baseball and music career often conflicted. Only one record credits his dual career. A 1959 release "Will You Be Mine" on CASH had Lee Maye of the Milwaukee Braves on the label. By the early 60's his baseball career was so high profile that he assigned the leadership of the Crowns to Henry Strogin whilst Maye went solo. "Halfway Out Of Love With You" came out on Lenox in 1963 and he recorded for Jamie the following year. The rest of the decade saw him move from the Milwaukee Braves to the Houston Astros on to the Cleveland Indians, then the Washington Senators before finishing his major league career at the Chicago White Sox. Since he couldn't find another major league team that was interested in him, for part of 1971 and 1972, Lee played for the Hawaii Islanders, a class AAA affiliate of the San Diego Padres.
In 1972, after 93 games with them (and a .285 average), Lee called it a career. He was 37 and had been playing professional ball for 18 years. For those who are interested in baseball, his career stats are impressive, he played in 1,288 games with an overall batting average of .274 (including four seasons over .300), hit 94 home runs and 419 RBIs, and scored 533 runs.
After retiring from baseball, Arthur worked for many years for Amtrak, but music remained a part of his life with records cut for Jetstream, Guyden, Tower, Pacemaker, ABC Paramount and Buddah. He was very proud of "Moonlight," a single he recorded for Dave Antrell in 1985. Over the next ten years, he appeared at most Doo-Wop Society of Southern California's shows, either as an entertainer (until he began having throat problems in the mid-'90s) or as a connoisseur who simply enjoyed listening to the music, hanging out with old friends, and meeting his fans. By 2002, however, he was beginning to suffer the ravaging effects of diabetes and liver cancer.
He died at the age of 67 in Riverside, California July 17, 2002, and is buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
(Edited from TIMS Blackcat NL & Wikipedia)