A conversation with Jess Lamb is a hybridized combination of disparate and yet inextricably connected qualities. It’s a tarot reading, a palmist’s insights, an astrologer’s consultation, a musical treatise, a philosophical dissection, a sweat lodge journey to the soul’s center and a repudiation of the illusionist’s art in favor of true magic.
Case in point: Lamb wanted to conduct our interview at Iris Cafe in Over-the-Rhine, without knowing that the grandmother who helped raise me after my mother’s death was named Iris. When I note this coincidence, she responds with “That’s amazing!” The exclamation doesn’t hit like hipster chatter designed to fill empty space but is spoken with the wide-eyed wonder of a believer who finds miracles in the mundane and sees signs in the most random tea leaves.
“Follow the signs,” Lamb states categorically. “Once you notice one, you’ll notice three, then you notice five, and, like right now, you’re creating portals. I believe that with all the AI things happening that there’s going to be a resurgence of people going analog and wanting to live like they’re in the ’90s. I believe that could bring back the music industry where people are selling physical items and in control of that, making human-to-human connections.”
That belief in signs and hope for a future that successfully draws on a reliable past may well be the secret ingredient that makes Lamb’s music so compelling. She has steadfast faith in her path, the work she creates along the way, the people she collaborates with and the intersectional environment where it all takes place.
“I think that’s born into us, that force of ‘Got to be who I am,'” says Lamb. “I see it; I’m drawn to it and to working and collabing with others who are just the biggest local stars that I’ve been in front of. I want to speak life to Cincinnati. I’m always going to be here. I have property here; I started my label (City Queen Sounds) here. When people go looking for the soul, and the songs that take you there, it’s deep, it’s different and that’s Cincinnati. I think this is where we’re going to shine the brightest during these times.”
It speaks volumes to Lamb’s local commitment, and to the artists she wants to promote, that we’re well into our conversation before it turns toward her personal work, her latest releases and future plans and her upcoming gig at MOTR Pub featuring many of the players who have accompanied her on past residencies and jam session dates. It’s just as important for her to elucidate what she refers to as “shadow work,” the act of artistic creation that draws on the darkest aspects of inspiration and experience in order to inject that creation with the greatest level of authenticity and emotion.
“I admire artists who become the character of their creation,” says Lamb. “I think that’s what really anoints great actors, but that also comes with some torment because you have to get in it and have the deepest experience. There has to be pain. This is something I tried to avoid a lot in my life, but, of late, I’ve been really obsessed with being in the shadow work. The more shadow work we’re willing to do, the deeper our spirit is, the more our hearts radiate and shine. It’s like a recharge. Go dark, come out so light.”
Lamb’s latest singles are great examples of what she does best with her soul/R&B/indie rock heart and vocal cords, the first being Bootsy Collins’ stunning remix of “Beautiful,” the closing track on her exquisite 2020 album, You Are. The original featured a wealth of vocal talent, including Siri Amani, Krystal Peterson, Mol Sullivan, Anna Applegate, Kate Wakefield and many others who are present in Collins’ wildly imaginative remix that took Lamb and her co-writer/co-producer Warren Harrison by surprise.
“I sent Bootsy all of the hundreds of stems we had recorded. We had so many legendary voices on there,” says Lamb. “When he sent it back, there were totally different lyrics, and I was like, ‘I don’t even remember recording this,’ and Warren was like, ‘I don’t even know how he got those.’ Then we realized we didn’t clear out the logic folder where you can delete takes you’d done, which we forgot about. Bootsy created this beautiful new version five years later with stuff we would have deleted. And actually, the lyrics are even more relevant to now, so this is the timeline jumping. I find hidden prophecies all the time, things that didn’t mean anything to me five years ago and now they’re changing my path.”
The second single is the brand new track “Since You’ve Gone,” which initially feels like an anthemic break-up torch song that touches musically on soul, jazz, art pop and gospel. Lamb notes the song goes infinitely deeper than lamenting a failed relationship.
“I wrote that for my grandmother, Viola Lamb,” she recalls. “She was one of my many nurturing energies that really made me be salt-of-the-earth with the way I create and do what I do.”
As it happens, “Since You’ve Gone” is new only because it’s making its studio debut. If you’ve seen Lamb live over the past decade and a half, you’ve probably heard it.
“That may be the song that I’ve sat on the longest before putting out a recording I thought did it justice,” says Lamb with an ever-present smile. “And with a lot of the Thursday night bandmates: Chris Robinson (guitars), Warren Harrison (strings), Nate Trammell (drums), Amanda Eldridge (bass), Anna Applegate and Tiffany Sullivan (vocals) and me on keys and vocals.”
Oddly enough, Lamb’s piano part was re-recorded note for note by Shelby Lock, who mixed the track from her Silver Moon Sound studio in Santa Cruz, California; it was discovered that Lamb’s keys had been recorded in mono. Everything else was done in Aaron Madrigal’s Tone Shoppe studio in Northside, live on the studio floor, with engineering done by Madrigal and Eric Cronstein.
“We had the band in a circle and that’s live, minus the keys,” says Lamb. “That’s total live performance energy, how we’ve performed every Thursday night, jamming for years. I knew that song had to be huge, full band. It feels like a church choir. They have such deep soul.”
The best news accompanying “Since You’ve Gone” is that it announces the arrival of Lamb’s first full album since You Are five years ago. Lamb is naturally excited about the 2026 release of the nine-track set, recorded like its initial single.
“It will also feature Siri Amani and Victoria Lekson, my harpist and best friend on every track, although she wasn’t on ‘Since You’ve Gone,'” says Lamb. “You’re going to hear lots of choir, harp, sultry electric guitars, and I’m going back to my gospel roots. Everything I’m writing is in this gospelesque/traditional R&B vibe. The album is called Hymns For My Friends. These are the songs we wrote for each other.”
Lamb will be hyperactive in the new year as she’ll continue to teach songwriting at Xavier University and give private lessons, while vigilantly scouting for talent to feature on her City Queen Sounds label (“I’m trying to showcase the best female artists that I’ve gotten to work with. And I’m sure there are female artists out there that I haven’t met, and I’d love to meet them. If anyone wants to pop into a show and introduce themselves, I would love that.”) She’s also writing the curriculum for an imminent songwriting class at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, and preparing for another fantastic jam session at MOTR Pub on Dec. 18 with the usual crew and, as advertised, several friends. That vibe has always been consistent and constant.
“We’re unlocking things. The more I meditate, the more I create and it’s just for the sake of life,” Lamb says enthusiastically. “I have so much soul, I have to give some of it away. I think the souls of things are so thick to me, it makes me even more present in moments of performing, where the spirit can just take control. I feel like I don’t even know what happened in that set, and I wouldn’t be able to play it exactly that way again.”
Jess Lamb plays MOTR Pub on Dec. 18 at 8:30 p.m. More info: motrpub.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 10 print edition.
This article appears in Dec. 10-23.