The last time we featured Amos Lee on this site, about a year ago, he was subject to such a savage kicking that even I felt bad, so it is with utter delight to discover Honeysuckle Switches: The Songs of Lucinda Williams. So often do we feature Lu here, given her prodigious thirst for covering the songs of others, it becomes especially good to see the compliment returned.
Lee and Williams have form; always a fan, Lee had a dream come true as she collaborated with him, for “Clear Blue Eyes,” on his 2011 break through album, 2011’s Mission Bell. Returning frequently to her songs in his concert settings, he says of her that “her vulnerability opened my heart,” citing how “she embraces sadness but is never enveloped by it.” I think that sentiment perfectly embraces the bittersweetness so often apparent in her songs, and Lee shares that quality in spades, a fragile strength that bears witness to his having maybe faced similar battles along the road.
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I confess I didn’t quite know how to approach Amos Lee’s My Ideal: A Tribute To Chet Baker Sings–with excitement and delight, or merely admiration. I get that this sounds grudging, but in my book Chet was not only one of the best two jazz trumpeters who ever strode this earth, he was also one of the very best singers. Alas, outside jazz circles, he never quite became the household name he could have been. Rock circles knew him best, perhaps, as the horn player on Elvis Costello’s own original version of “Shipbuilding,” arguably a quarter century past his peak. So anyone who can raise his profile, well, that’s fine by me.
