Lonnie Lee

As part of the NSW Seniors Festival 2026, Diggers is delighted to present Australian music legend Lonnie Lee, live on stage with his “Last Man Standing from his Era” concert.

Lonnie Lee (born David Lawrence Rix, 18 September 1940) is an Australian singer and a pioneer of Australian rockabilly music. Fronting groups such as Lonnie Lee and the Leemen and Lonnie Lee and the Leedons, he has enjoyed a career spanning more than 60 years. At his commercial peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lee achieved eight Top 100 singles, including three Top 20 hits: “Ain’t It So” (1959), “Starlight Star Bright” (1960), and “I Found a New Love” (1960). He earned five gold records. Although his final single, “Sad Over Someone,” was released in 1969, Lee continued touring into the 2000s and released his final album, Back to Base X, in 2019.

Lee grew up on a sheep farm in Rowena, New South Wales, and began singing in a church choir at age seven. As a teenager, he learned guitar and performed impersonations of Johnnie Ray and Nat King Cole. After leaving school, he worked as a bank clerk before entering music professionally. In 1956, he placed second on 2UW’s Alan Toohey’s Amateur Hour. The following year, performing as Laurie Lee, he won a contest to find “Australia’s own Elvis Presley.”

Rock ’n’ roll star Johnny O’Keefe became his manager, suggested the stage name Lonnie Lee—after Lonnie Donegan—and secured him a deal with Leedon Records. Lee’s debut single, “Ain’t It So,” written by O’Keefe, became a major Sydney hit in 1959. He soon became a television regular on Six O’Clock Rock and Bandstand and formed Sydney’s first rockabilly trio, the Leemen.

During the 1960s, Lee toured internationally and later lived in the United States, where he wrote songs and recorded. Returning to Australia in 1984, he revived classic rock ’n’ roll through performances, radio shows, and tribute productions, remaining an influential figure in Australian music history.