Mountains Of Sorrow, Rivers Of Song (studio album) by Amos Lee

From buzzdainer 06/17/2017 16:04

Around the time this album came out, I was introduced to Amos Lee by my friend Jennifer, whose musical tastes I had come to recognize as impeccable. So I was a little late arriving to the Amos Lee party, given the strength of the albums he'd already released by then. Perhaps because this was the first one I heard, though, it remains my favorite. It's the album on which Amos Lee goes full-on Nashville, though I'd argue that he went to Nashville and made it his own rather than the other way around. He takes a classic Americana folk soul sound and inflects it with with a strong dose of social and economic justice, as on the great "High Water," with lyrics and themes reminiscent both of Bessie Smith's "Deep Water Blues" and the Uncle Tupelo song of the same name. Given what a student Amos Lee is of American musical history, I'm certain he was well aware of both references, and fusing them together in a conscious and intentional way.