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He's a musician's musician" is one of those cliches designed to explain why a musician, much admired by his peers, is not enjoying eulogistic adulation from the public. It is hard to think of another musician as little known, and as widely admired, as English-born guitarist Albert Lee.

Over 30 years ago Glenn Cornick, one-time bass player with Jethro Tull, argued that Lee, who at the time was a member of the little-known band Head, Hands and Feet, was actually a much better guitarist than either Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix. That accolade was not exceptional. It was typical.

Throughout Lee's career the eulogies have poured down on him from the cream of musicians. Clapton is on record as saying Lee is "the greatest guitarist in the world". Emmylou Harris was, if possible, even more enthusiastic when she described Lee as "a brilliant guitar player. His sound is unmistakable, often emulated never equalled. When St Peter asks me to chronicle the highlights of my time down here on earth, I'll be able to say (with pride if that's allowed) that for a while I played rhythm guitar in a band with Albert Lee."

"Where's the money to show for it?" asks Lee from his home in Los Angeles. "It didn't quite materialise."

But is this low profile and huge reputation a result of someone who consciously wanted to keep out of the spotlight? "Oh no. Not at all. I've always wanted to be out there making music and be successful at it. I guess that most of the time most of my music wasn't in the mainstream. I followed a path that interested me but didn't interest the world at large."

This probably accounts for Lee's relative lack of success. As he explains "I haven't thought career-wise. I've just been thinking musically. I can't afford to retire and I wouldn't want to anyway because I love to play.

"All the guys of my age, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, we all started out listening to early rock'n'roll . . . Then a lot of the guys moved to players like BB King and Freddie King and they became heavier players. I went the other direction.

"I felt like the odd man out in the late 1960s in England because everyone was getting big Marshall stacks and really cranking it up and playing Les Pauls and whatever. I was playing a Telecaster with a little Fender amp. No one else was playing with that kind of set up."

Realising that blues-crazy England was not receptive to his style of music, Lee decamped to America in the early 1970s and over the years he has played with dozens of country-style outfits including The Everly Brothers (for nearly 20 years) and Emmylou Harris.

Albert Lee may not be a household name. But, at the age of 63, he is still working, still hugely admired and still a guitarist of choice for discriminating musicians.

If you think his appearance in Australia is just another journeyman muso doing the rounds, think again. In the past few weeks, he has played in Chicago, Las Vegas and Toronto and, after Australia he will return to Los Angeles, have less than a week's rest, and then head off on a five-week tour of Europe playing with his own band, Hogan's Heroes, and with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. It is simple. He's a working musician.

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