Amos Lee Albums (3)
'Last Days at the Lodge'
Release Date 6/24/2008
Tracks 11
Label Angel
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Amos Lee received some solid critical notice for his first two Blue Note records and made it through to create a third -- an accomplishment in and of itself these days. As they were described, these albums walked some strange line between Neil Young, Bill Withers, and James Taylor. That's some heavy company to keep for a young man who used to be a schoolteacher. Last Days at the Lodge isn't a radical departure. Produced by Don Was, Lee's studio band includes guitar slinger Doyle Bramhall II, no less a keyboardist than Spooner Oldham, bassist Pino Palladino, and drummer James Gadson. All of these cats are super-choppers. The guests include the ubiquitous Greg Leisz on pedal steel and banjo, and a slew of keyboard players including Was, Justin Stanley, Rami Jaffee, and Jamie Muhoberac. Musically, the soul tunes on this set are far more interesting than anything else -- Lee's got a terrific voice to exploit, but he seldom does it and it's a shame. Check the honey-dripping babymaker "Won't Let Me Go," with a sweet string arrangement by Larry Gold and Lee doing his best Ron Isley and Al Green combination. Then there's the more baroque Terry Callier touches on "Baby I Want You," which begins as a subtle folk-blues but becomes a gorgeous guitar-fueled soul number. These cuts are numbers two and three in the sequence; they create a very deep and genuine emotional vibe that stands in stark contrast to the opener. "Listen" is Lee playing a sloppy, minor-key guitar rocker that feels like David Crosby singing a ZZ Top song they wrote for CSNY. Thankfully, this dreadfully dull moment is the only one of its kind here. Swinging acoustic/electric shuffling blues-driven tunes enter the mix on "Truth" before a washed-out singer/songwriter ballad, "What's Been Going On," displaces the setting. The blues reenter on "Street Corner Preacher" to liven things up a bit. The Callier cum Curtis Mayfield-esque soul returns on "Jails and Bombs," thank the gods, but that's the last taste of what Lee does best. The rest is standard singer/songwriter fare that is forgettable for its lack of originality even if it is pleasant. (Joe Henry already passed through these gates on his way to the dark yet living heart of American music, and he did it far better.) Despite its relaxed vibe, the sense of conflict in this set is everywhere. It reveals Lee to be at a crossroads aesthetically. The forces that drive him to the soul side are the same ones that drive him to the rest. The problem is that he only does one of these things exceptionally well: Lee is a great soul singer when he allows himself to be, and he knows how to write an excellent if quirky song in the genre that touches both Memphis and Chicago. The three tracks here that evoke that style set him apart from everyone else on the scene. It's a wonder that Was or his A&R man at Blue Note didn't push him a bit harder in that direction. Who knows? He will have to choose eventually, because one way or another, he can't get over by simply playing mix-and-match forever -- his albums will become generic rather than iconoclastic. Last Days at the Lodge is, after all, an average and bland singer/songwriter album with three great tracks (which is at least two more than most kids on the block). ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On the title track to his sophomore effort, Supply and Demand, singer/songwriter Amos Lee sings, "Baby I need a plan to help me understand, that life ain't only supply and demand." If the supply and demand Lee is referring to is money, success, and power -- and it clearly is -- then the stuff he truly values here is the currency of freedom, love, and sympathy for your fellow man. It's just such yin-yang subject matter that has driven folksingers to set struggle to melody ever since Depression-era scufflers like Woody Guthrie pointed out how America was technically "made for you and me" and not just those in the nice suits. For the most part, Lee is on about the same stuff here, although his vantage point is the more stylish, if no less lonely, tour bus and not a dust bowler's flatbed truck. Nonetheless, Lee is a heartfelt songwriter with an R&B crooner's sense of romance and drama and a real knack for turning his own ennui into anthems for the average guy. He tackles wars of various stripes on "Freedom" and like John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change," the song finds Lee deftly threading the political needle with lines like "Don't want to blame the rich for what they got or point a finger at the poor for what they have not" and "Freedom is seldom found by beatin' someone to the ground." It's a catchy stump speech of a tune and, three songs in, lifts the album up from just pleasant into something truly welcome and unexpected. Similarly engaging is the sanguine, slow ballad "Careless," which mixes the Band's "The Night We Drove Old Dixie Down" and Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Helpless" into a gut-wrenching and artful self-indictment of infidelity. However, it's the low-key and darkly sweet "Night Train" that should remain as not just the album's best cut, but Lee's signature song. Hypnotically simple, the song hangs on the chorus with Lee's candid omission, "I've been workin' on a night train/Drinkin' coffee, takin' cocaine/I'm out here on my night train/Tryin' to get her safely home." It's a hushed, rhythmically propulsive song filled with dramatic tension that is beautifully colored by shimmers of organ and lush guitars. On an album all about what's been bought and sold, both personally and collectively, it shows how in tune Lee is with this land of ours and how good he is at selling his soul in the best possible way. ~ Matt Collar, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With a dusky soul voice and a knack for literate, thoughtful lyrics, singer/songwriter Amos Lee is a throwback to a more organic-sounding pop time period. Calling to mind a mix of Bill Withers, Arthur Lee, and James Taylor, Lee croons through his mellow eponymous debut with a singular sense of his time and place that adds weight to his already heartfelt songs. Much like Taylor's Sweet Baby James and Withers' Still Bill, Amos Lee is an album about an artist's life and loves in a world that often seems at odds with his desires. On "Arms of a Woman," Lee sings "I am at ease in the arms of a woman/Although now most of my days are spent alone/A thousand miles from the place I was born/But when she wakes she takes me back home." Similarly, the darkly evocative "Black River" has Lee in a gospel mood, drawing comparisons between a swift-moving river, God, and whiskey, while the brisk country-rock-inflected "Love in the Lies" finds him proclaiming that "The world ain't no harder than it's ever been/Lookin' for love in the lies of a lonely friend." For all intents and purposes with Lee, Blue Note has found the male Norah Jones. In fact, Jones guests here and, interestingly, on "Colors," Lee sings about getting "lost in the circus" -- one wonders if Blue Note hopes that Jones' "house of fun" is close by. Joining in are other members of the Blue Note extended family, including Jones' longtime bassist Lee Alexander, guitarist Kevin Breit, and others. The result is an album not dissimilar to Jones' multiple Grammy-winning Come Away With Me, as Wurlitzer and Hammond organs pipe softly next to acoustic guitars, allowing Lee to glide on top of a wave of tasteful coffeehouse soul. While the comparison is mostly positive, it does pose one rub in that even Come Away With Me, while unfailingly intimate and classy, was somewhat calculated to be beautifully crafted, deeply emotional wallpaper, and Amos Lee holds to that template. Which basically means that, despite Lee's stellar melodic abilities, the arrangements are often too low-key for their own good. That said, Lee has a phenomenal voice matched by a journeyman's sense of songcraft that is just too good to go unnoticed. ~ Matt Collar, All Music Guide
