Elly Roberts reviews
Amos Lee: Amos Lee
Distributed by
Blue Note (Capitol Records Inc.)
- Released: February 2005
- Format: CD
- Rating: 10/10
- Cat.no.: 7243 5 97350 2 3
When, in a short period of time, you get invited to support Bob Dylan, it’s a
rubber stamp of your credentials. The man that’s achieved that honour is non
other than Amos Lee.
Giving up his elementary school teacher’s job, and working in bars to fund his
ambition, he’s now finally realised his longstanding dream with his self-titled
album on Blue Note Records.
He got his big break early last year, when he toured with songbird Norah Jones
(who appears on track 1 and produced by her co-writer Lee Alexander).
With eleven deeply soulful and gorgeous tracks, it will immediately grab your
attention. There’s a subtle contemporary twist of balladry all in the mix:
jazzy-soul (Keep It Tight), gospel (Give It Up), folk (Arms Of
A Woman) and folk-blues (Dreamin'/Soul Suckers/Bottom Of The Barrel)
- a kind of Labi Siffre meets Eric Bibb - and it’s sufficient enough to impress
Bob.
At the very heart of his compositions are memorable and melodic sojourns that scale
the depths of emotions; the usual stuff of love and friendship. Style and class
run through all the tracks, which are a delight to listen to with the formatting
absolutely perfect. It’s laid back and very chilled, but it never reaches that
loungy comfort zone, though he breaks loose with Give It Up.
Vocally he’s well disciplined and pitch perfect, as he delicately switches styles
with consummate ease. Instrumentally, it has lush lashings of viola, mandolin,
cello, wurlitzer and the usual guitar/drums cascading over his gentle acoustic
guitar and singing.
Like the man says - he keeps it loose and lets it all hang out. If Norah Jones
can strike it rich with her two albums, then Amos Lee deserves a Grammy for
this remarkable debut. One suspects this could be slow burner a la Damien Rice's
"O". Mhhh, delicious.
The full list of tracks included are :
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.
