Childhood and Early Life
Atwater was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Harvey Dillard, an insurance adjustor, and Alma "Toddy" Page Atwater. He had two siblings, Ann and Joe. He grew up in Aiken, South Carolina, where his childhood was marred with tragedy when his three-year-old brother, Joe, was scalded to death, when he pulled a deep fryer full of hot oil on himself.
As a teenager in Columbia, South Carolina, Atwater played guitar in a rock band, The Upsetters Revue. Even at the height of his political power, he would often play concerts in clubs and church basements, solo or with B.B. King, in the Washington, D.C. area. He released an album called "Red, Hot And Blue" on Curb Records, featuring Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Chuck Jackson, and B.B. King, who got co-billing with Atwater. Robert Hilburn wrote about the album in the Los Angeles Times on April 5, 1990: "The most entertaining thing about this ensemble salute to spicy Memphis-style '50s and '60s R&B is the way it lets you surprise your friends. Play a selection such as 'Knock on Wood' or 'Bad Boy' for someone without identifying the singer, then watch their eyes bulge when you reveal that it's the controversial national chairman of the Republican Party... Lee Atwater."
During the 1960s Atwater briefly played backup guitar for Percy Sledge, and frequently played with bluesmen such as B.B. King.
In 1970, Atwater graduated from Newberry College, a small private Lutheran institution in Newberry, South Carolina, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At Newberry, Atwater served as the governor of the South Carolina Student Legislature. Atwater earned a master of arts degree in communications from the University of South Carolina in 1977. Atwater married his wife, Sally Dunbar, in 1978; they had three children, Sara Lee, Ashley Page, and Sally Theodosia.
Read more about this topic: Lee Atwater
Famous quotes containing the words childhood and, childhood, early and/or life:
“The route through childhood is shaped by many forces, and it differs for each of us. Our biological inheritance, the temperament with which we are born, the care we receive, our family relationships, the place where we grow up, the schools we attend, the culture in which we participate, and the historical period in which we live—all these affect the paths we take through childhood and condition the remainder of our lives.”
—Robert H. Wozniak (20th century)
“The limitless future of childhood shrinks to realistic proportions, to one of limited chances and goals; but, by the same token, the mastery of time and space and the conquest of helplessness afford a hitherto unknown promise of self- realization. This is the human condition of adolescence.”
—Peter Blos (20th century)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all.... I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)