Denny albee biography

Paul Dennis Albee of Oran, Missouri, passed away on Sunday, November 3, 2019 at the age of 74.

Dennis was born on October 27, 1945 to Wilbur “Pete” and Dorothy (Butler) Albee in Kansas City, Missouri.  He graduated from Dexter High School in 1963.  On August 21, 1966, he married Donna Jean Carr.  They raised one daughter, Teresa.

Dennis owned and operated Albee Auto Supply for many years in Oran.  After closing the store, he was employed by a few different companies until becoming employed with Proctor and Gamble.  He retired from P & G in 2008.

Dennis was active in several organizations. The Promenaires Square Dance Club, Oran Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad, Scott County Rural Fire District, Scott County Reserve Deputy Sheriff, Morley Masonic Lodge #184 A.F. and A.M., Lakeville Masonic Lodge #489, and GWRRA Missouri Chapter I.

Dennis enjoyed deer hunting with his brothers, riding Goldwing motorcycles with his wife, Donna, and the Goldwing chapter. He also enjoyed scuba diving, horseback riding, and spending time with his grandson, Clay.

Dennis was Oran Chamber of Commerce Man of the Year in 1985, Fire Chief for Oran Volunteer Fire Department and Scott County Rural Fire District.

Dennis was preceded in death by his father, Wilbur “Pete”, his mother, Dorothy, and step-mother Zada.  He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Donna, and daughter Teresa (Chad) Clevenger, his brothers Frank (Carol), Ed (Sue), and sister Lenore (Charlie), several cousins, nieces and nephews, and grandson Clay.

Visitation will be held at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Oran, Missouri on Friday, November 8, 2019 from 4-8 pm. 

Funeral services will be at the Chapel Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 11 am. 

Burial will follow services at Friend Cemetery. 

Dennis Albee was born on a cold Sunday night in January when guitarist Elvis Presley was celebrating his own birthday as a teenager in Memphis.

Albee hit the stage one year after Presley did.

Albee sat down with The Hawk Eye at Musicians Pro Shop in Burlington to talk about why it’s a good thing to be an unsung anything, let alone guitar hero. He has life forces guiding him, and one of the most powerful is music because it transcends everything — music is spiritual, social, healthy; you name it. And when you can make your own music, you are in tune with the universe.

Albee’s parents, Dorothy and Carl, had a square and round dance band and a show the day little Dennis got out of the hospital where he was born, thus he spent the evening on stage in his crib.

“They told me I walked up when I was about 4 and said, ‘Me play now.’ I already knew their music because I’d already been hearing it since I was in the womb, obviously,” he said. “I’m sure the little boy got lots of instructions.”

His older sisters, Dina and Linda, weren’t in the band — yet.

Albee’s first guitar was a Stella, a brand played by the likes of Robert Johnson, Doc Watson and, yes, Elvis.

Albee doesn’t remember the first song he played, but it likely was a square dance.

“They had a caller, they had a fiddle player, they had a mandolin, a banjo guy. ... Dad played electric guitar and Hawaiian guitar,” Albee said. “Mother played guitar and sometimes accordion.”

Albee appeared on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour while he still was a single-digit kid.

“When I was about 8 or 9, I realized I didn’t care for their kind of music,” Albee said, laughing. “I wanted to play something my older sisters liked.”

He was 11 when he started his first rock band, the Firebirds, with his sister, Dina, and a drummer from Iowa.

“This was prior to Gibson making that model guitar, prior to the Pontiac Firebird,” he said.

Albee has a good singing voice and added banjo, accordion, mandol

American playwright (1928–2016)

Edward Franklin Albee III (AWL-bee; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966), and Three Tall Women (1994). Some critics have argued that some of his work constitutes an American variant of what Martin Esslin identified as and named the Theater of the Absurd. Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play.

His works are often considered frank examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet.

His middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage and sexual relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albee's mix of theatricality and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent postwar American theatre in the early 1960s. Later in life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002).

Early life

Edward Albee was born in 1928. His biological father left his mother, Louise Harvey, and he was placed for adoption two weeks later and taken to Larchmont, New York, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. His adoptive mother, Reed's second wife, Frances (Cotter), was a socialite. He later based the main character of his 1991 play Three Tall Women on his mother, with whom he had a conflicted relationship.

Albee attended the Rye Country Day School, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, from which he was expelled. He then was sen