As a bona fide veteran of the scene, Albert Lee has played with his fair share of virtuosos. Looking back on his illustrious career in a new interview with Guitar World, Lee gave the inside story of one of rock’s best-kept secrets: Biff Baby’s All-Stars.
Founded by Sterling Ball, Ernie Ball’s son, the supergroup was very much an impromptu and informal affair. Through his tours, Ball crossed paths with some of the era’s top players, including Lee, Steve Morse, Steve Lukather, and, surprisingly, Eddie Van Halen. Naturally, they couldn’t help but jam.
“We’d play at the Palomino under some weird name; we’d just show up so nobody would know,” Lukather told Rick Beato in a recent interview.
Latest Videos FromGuitar World
“By halfway through the set, the place was jam-packed, and we’d just mess around – call out goofy tunes like we would in junior high school.”
In GW’s new interview, Lee recalls an instance when Van Halen experienced a bout of imposter syndrome, as he tried to cop some chicken pickin’ while the supergroup was playing Lee’s track Country Boy.
“On a couple of gigs, we had Eddie Van Halen playing with us. He said, ‘I can’t play on that!’ I said, ‘Yes, you can – you can do all that tapping!’ And of course he was great,” he remembers.
Lee goes on to explain that Van Halen “didn’t think it was his style. I said, ‘Of course it is!’”
Biff Baby’s All-Stars went on to do “odd gigs,” mostly throughout the early ’90s.
“We did one at the NAMM show, which people still talk about. They used to say, ‘That show you did with Steve Morse and Eddie Van Halen was great. Any chance of any more?’ I’d say, ‘I don’t think so!’”
Alas, the supergroup never hit the studio to record anything – so only a couple of sketchy bootleg recordings survive to encapsulate the time when these guitar greats took a break from their “day jobs” and jammed to their hearts’ content.
