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Amos Lee
Wednesday · 20th Century Theater
Cincinnati marks stop No. 10 on Amos Lee’s first headlining tour across the States. Not to say this is new ground for the Philly native. Lee has toured with the likes of Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, B.B. King and Mose Allison. While touring in Europe with Norah Jones, he also shared bills with Al Green, Van Morrison, John Prine and the Blind Boys of Alabama, creating lineups born from American tradition. Expression and creative use of words is a talent intrinsic to Lee. Between an acoustic guitar and Stevie’s Songs in the Key of Life, he decided to put music to his words, with melody bringing closure to his thoughts. Lee’s music holds integrity as it carries a melodic rhythm of poetic texture. His self-titled debut album was released earlier this year on Blue Note Records. Amos Lee is a mellow balance between Soul and Folk. Balance is alive and well in Lee’s consciousness and in his music.
“Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight” recognizes that through the ebb and flow of life, “we all got the same blood flow.” On “Soul Suckers,” in a Seal-like fashion, his falsetto supernova seethes warning that “nobody wants honesty when looking at a perfect frame.” Instability is a part of balance, right, despite the flawless frame? “Yeah, you gotta have one to know the other,” Lee concedes during a recent phone interview. “I think a lot of things are unstable, me being one of them.”His honesty, not innocence, is soulfully rendered — as Al Green would have it — in “Seen It All Before,” as he expresses being “stuck between the depths of my fears and the peaks of my pride.” Lee rings out the Otis Redding rhythm in “Give It Up,” with slap-stick strings and cool keys giving up the groove. Throughout it all, Lee says he keeps it real by not taking himself too seriously “and not (taking) the world around you too seriously at the same time. I’m just in the process of learning, which is basically running around from different directions. I’m still in a place where my mind is turning. I listen to songs, where they’re coming from or where they’re going. I’m constantly thinking about songs … it never stops.” (Sara Beiting)
The Dreadful Yawns with Southeast Engine
Saturday · The Comet
Listening to The Dreadful Yawns’ latest album is like swinging in an oversized hammock that hangs between the towering pines of Indie Pop and Americana. As it sways lazily, rocked by a gentle Appalachian breeze, it ascends all of these labels, taking its place beside the most earnest Folk Rock music of the last half-century. Although this group of Clevelanders has been at it in one form or another since 1998, only in the last few years have they started churning out recorded material. And if the recent pace of change is indicative of their entire career, they might well have started as a Metal band. Their 2003 debut, Early, saw the Yawns taking a Fleetwood Mac tack, accentuating soaring female harmonies and embracing jerky shuffles, but keeping the acoustic guitar at the fore. The band was also clearly revolving tightly around the talents of singer/songwriter Ben Gmetro and collaborator Dave Molnar. On 2004’s Pretend EP, they took a much more subtle, introspective approach, and this year’s self-titled release on Bomp! Records is even more of a departure, although it’s just as much a culmination. Their winding path has led them to the base of a mountain of timeless American music, and on this disc they climb toward the summit where artists such as CSN&Y and Elliott Smith reside. Ringing arpeggios and tasty harmonies have drawn comparison to The Byrds, which is also appropriate, insofar as the band is full of songwriters. But they mingle their bittersweet performances such that the band has one unmistakable voice. The recent addition of singer/guitarist Nick Tolar has expanded their collection of songwriting members to three. Along with drummer Mike Hutton, Tolar comes courtesy of his primary project, the gorgeous low-key ensemble, Expecting Rain. This band also borrows a couple of the Yawns (Molnar and bassist Mike Allen). Incestuous? Sure, but if that’s what it takes to feed both of these bands’ seductive and classic sound, so be it. (Ezra Waller)
Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon
Saturday · Bogart’s
Acoustic Folk fingerstylist Leo Kottke has collaborated with a number of like-minded musicians over the years, from Folk/Avant theorist John Fahey to fingerpicking contemporary Peter Lang to acoustic guitar icon Michael Hedges. None of the acoustic guitar innovator’s co-conspirators has been more surprising, in theory or in execution, than his recent pairing with Phish bassist Mike Gordon. Their first album as a duo, 2002’s Clone, was a refreshing surprise as Gordon added a bass/electric guitar counterpoint to Kottke’s acoustic brilliance that hadn’t been so overtly present since his band-oriented Folk/Pop works of the ’70s; the album also exposed Kottke to a new generation of Phish fans, revitalizing his career just as Bruce Hornsby had been energized by Deadheads. As good as Clone turned out, the teaming of Kottke and Gordon seemed as though it might be relegated to one-off status until Phish announced its indefinite retirement, assuring that Gordon would have time on his hands for projects such as this. For their sophomore effort together, Sixty Six Steps, Kottke and Gordon add a couple of new and interesting elements, including percussionist Neil Symonette (on everything from drums to rain stick to bell tree to Jack Daniel’s jug) and a typically quirky assortment of cover versions, a hallmark of Kottke’s albums in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The lovely rendering of Pete Seeger’s “Living in the Country” is not so far in spirit from their originals, and neither is Kottke’s vocal turn on the early ’70s Cimarron hit “Rings.” Less conventional is the trio’s reworking of the Fleetwood Mac chestnut “Oh Well” and their smile-inducing treatment of (no, really) Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” Throw in a few oddball Gordon tunes (“The Grid,” “Over the Dam”) and a similar number of patented Kottke oddities (the gently bent “Balloon,” the Dust Bowl Blues of “From Spink to Correctionville”) and Sixty Six Steps is a logical and welcome next step for a pair that seemed like they might not have a next step. (Brian Baker)
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.
