[6] While there, he also sang with the Tuskegee Chorus and played music at rallies led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[6] In 1961, Lewis enlisted in the US Air Force as a nuclear weapons specialist and later stationed for four years in Roswell, New Mexico.

[6][7] After his time in the Air Force, Lewis relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as an engineering technician, choir director, and nightclub musician.

[3] After moving to Los Angeles, Lewis worked with a number of celebrity musicians and producers, including Quincy Jones, Sergio Mendez, and Michael Jackson.

[6][11] Lewis was most famous for having created an early integrated sound controller for analog synthesizers, which he named Live Electronic Orchestra (LEO), ten years prior to MIDI.

[1][6][7][8] Lewis designed LEO in 1974 and completed it in 1977 by linking various synthesizers to work together in live performance, limited at the time to mostly studio production.

[2] A feature-length documentary film, Don Lewis and The Live Electronic Orchestra, produced and directed by Ned Augustenborg, was released in February 2023 on PBS.

In order to delve into the history of electronic music, it includes interviews with Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Ikutaro Kakehashi, John Chowning and Alan Kay.