Laura Lee Perkins (July 20, 1939 – April 6, 2018) was a rockabilly musician who was once billed as "the female Jerry Lee Lewis."
Laura Lee Perkins was born Alice Faye Perkins, and she grew up in a coal mining town about fifty miles outside of Charleston, West Virginia. Perkins learned to play the guitar and sing at home, and her family was gifted a piano when she was a child. She never took lessons, but taught herself to play proficiently. She also learned to play guitar and piano in her youth and when she attended Stoco High School, she also learned to play the trumpet.
When she graduated from high school in 1957, she decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio, where she had heard there were a lot of factories where she might get a job. She was overwhelmed by the big city and moved to the nearby town of Elyria. She got a job as a waitress, and while out driving with friends she met at the diner where she worked, happened to meet local disc jockey Jeff Baxter. Baxter was playing a lot of rock and roll records at the time on WEOL. When he heard her play the piano, he made some demo tapes and sent them to fellow disc jockey Bill Randle—who was well connected in the industry and known for helping to break new rock and roll artists. In 1958 Randle helped Perkins to secure an opportunity to record for Imperial records in California, all expenses paid.
Perkins cut several sides there, where she was backed by the same band that accompanied Ricky Nelson (she was thrilled that she also got to meet Nelson). The songs produced during these sessions include Don't Wait Up and Kiss Me Baby. The label did some publicity for her—though they appeared to have listed her under several different stage names, finally opting for Laura Lee Perkins—and apparently tried to bill her as the “female Jerry Lee Lewis” because of her skill at the piano.
Perkins returned to Cleveland, where she had difficulty promoting her recordings. She recalls that being single and working as a waitress, she couldn’t muster the payola required to break through in some markets. She would play record hops where she would lip sync to her Imperial sides. Some of the other acts at the hops she played included Connie Francis, the Everly Brothers, and Fabian.
Perkins returned to Ohio and later moved to Detroit in 1959 where her aunt took an interest in a career—even marching into radio stations and identifying herself as Perkins’s “press agent.” Perkins played a lot in the Detroit area and also toured with a band called Tony Thomas and the Tartans. She traveled nearly the entire country and Canada, driving herself and wowing audiences with wild live shows. She also appeared with Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin in New York.
After her marriage on June 9, 1963 to tool salesman Neal Kitts, and the birth of her first son James in 1965, she chose to end her professional work as entertainer. Two other sons, Charles and Nick, followed. From then on she took care of her family, hung up her rockin’ shoes and helped with the family business “Kitts Industrial Tools”. However, in the ‘80s she wrote and sang jingles for radio and television for Kitts Tools, Cessna Pilot Center or Blackwell Ford. She also recorded a single about John DeLorean's famous DMC12 sport car.
Her inclusion on the Imperial Rockabillies LP issued in Europe by United Artists made her a legend. But while European fans had the good fortune to see performances by Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin or Barbara Pittman in the early ‘80s, there was nothing about Laura Lee until recognition came in 2003 with Laura Lee’s nomination into the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2006 she released the album I’m Back and Here We Go. In 2008 she performed at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Festival. She died in 2018.
(Edited from Women In Rock Project, Tales From The Woods &Wikipedia)