A funny thing happened at the Suwannee Springfest a few months ago. The Springfest is an annual four-day music festival near Jacksonville, Florida, that attracts some of the biggest bluegrass, jam rock, and alternative roots music acts in the business. Early one day halfway through the festival, a band called The Lee Boys walked onstage, plugged in electric and pedal steel guitars, and started playing. They were the first act of the day, around noontime, and most of the festivalgoers were still tucked up tight in the nearby campground. Only about 200 people were gathered in front of the stage, and they immediately came to their feet when The Lee Boys unleashed their supercharged sacred steel music. Suddenly, people began pouring out of their tents and making for the stage. In no time, they were more than 3,000 strong, and they were cheering and rocking along with The Lee Boys. One of the hottest acts in one of America’s hottest musical movements, The Lee Boys are bringing their supercharged version of sacred steel to the Columbia Blues Festival, and there’ll be no sitting-and-listening when these guys start playing. They play music that’s meant to lift you up, make you dance, shout, and raise your hands up over your head. Sacred steel music got its start in the late 1930s, when two brothers, Willie and Troman Eason, brought electric lap-steel guitars into a House of God church in Jacksonville to invigorate the Sunday morning service. Little did they know just how much invigorating the lap steel would provide! The Lee Boys are part of the fourth generation of sacred-steel musicians. Founder and bandleader Alvin Lee plays lead guitar. “The inspiration and feeling that comes along with our music is the reason that people feel good,” he says. “It’s like the new music on the block, and it’s getting ready to explode!” Alvin’s brothers Keith and Derrick handle the vocal chores. The Lee Boys’ cousin Roosevelt Collier was taught to play the 12-string pedal steel guitar by his late uncle Glenn Lee, and it’s “Velt’s” passionate, rapid-fire licks on the pedal steel that drive the band. Rounding out the group are Earl Walker on drums and “Little Alvin” Cordy on seven-string bass guitar. The Lee Boys’ sacred steel music might be deeply rooted in gospel, but you can hear everything from jazz and rock to funk and R&B in the group’s exhilarating mix. They crank out truly powerful jams that become more joyous as the song goes on. The group has toured the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and recently they blew the roof off the House of Blues at Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida. There’s no roof over King Park, but you can be sure The Lee Boys will be raising a joyful ruckus just the same.