• What: Amos Lee, in concert.
• When: 8 p.m. Jan. 21.
• Where: McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside St., Portland.
• Cost: $33.20 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
• Information: 503-225-0047 or danceonair.com.
Plenty of young musicians decide to put college on hold to take a shot at writing songs and performing.
Amos Lee, however, never really gave music much thought until after he earned his degree and had been teaching in the Philadelphia area for a couple of years. Lee knows his path into music is a bit unusual.
“It’s kind of funny that I’m doing what I’m doing now because I wasn’t even considering it as, I don’t know, a career option or anything like that, or even a dream per se,” Lee said in a mid-January phone interview.
• What: Amos Lee, in concert.
• When: 8 p.m. Jan. 21.
• Where: McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside St., Portland.
• Cost: $33.20 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or <a href="http://ticketmaster.com">ticketmaster.com</a>.
• Information: 503-225-0047 or <a href="http://danceonair.com">danceonair.com</a>.
Lee said he fell in love with music but didn’t know how to translate that into a career.
“In my family, everybody just kind of works. There are people who are artistic, but none of them really has pursued that as a profession,” he said. “To me, it wasn’t even an option. I guess I just sort of decided to blaze my own path.”
He readily admits that he was a big music fan growing up, pointing to one of his first musical memories as a sixth-grader as an example.
“I heard this song by Luther Vandross called ‘Here And Now,’” he said. “I just got super-transfixed on the tune, so I taped it over and over again on both sides of a 90-minute tape and would just sing along to it, like by myself in a room for like hours. I don’t really know what drew me to do that. It was just kind of an obsession of mine to like listen to him sing and sing along with him.”
When he got to the University of South Carolina, he fell in with a group of people who played guitar. This prompted Lee to take up the instrument and try his hand at songwriting.
But it wasn’t until he found himself dissatisfied with teaching that he decided to see if he could make a go of music for a living.
Lee certainly received early indications that his career switch was the right move. Following the 2005 release of his self-titled debut CD, Lee was touted by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the year’s “10 artists to watch.” The CD caught on, selling nearly 500,000 copies.
He hasn’t reached those commercial heights since, but Lee’s next two albums, “Supply and Demand” and “Last Days at the Lodge,” were warmly received in the press, and Lee has continued to build his audience.
Ironically, before recording his newest release, “Mission Bell,” Lee found himself wondering if he was truly cut out for the life of a professional musician, doubts he attributes to the fast pace of his career.
“I’d spent the previous five years, like, pretty much on the road nonstop,” he said. “I just needed to figure out where I was because I couldn’t tell. And I’m still trying to figure it out, but I feel a little bit more solid now than I did then. … I’m in a good place. I’ve got people that are interested in the music I’m making. And I mean, I still love doing it.”
With his enthusiasm renewed, Lee took a markedly new approach in “Mission Bell,” working with the band Calexico.
The result was a far more collaborative experience than Lee had ever had in the studio, and an album that widens the scope of Lee’s soulful brand of folk-pop. Lee, whose songwriting is sharper than ever, credits Calexico with bringing a range of textures and subtle complexities to his songs that make “Mission Bell” his richest work to date. Tunes such as “El Camino,” with its gentle horns, and the slight country touches that sneak through the CD’s breezy first single, “Windows Are Rolled Down,” reflect a more imaginative treatment of Lee’s songs.
Lee considers “Mission Bell” to be at least the equal of his debut, in that both present cohesive, fully formed cycles of songs.
He plans to play at least eight “Mission Bell” songs nightly on tour with his newly expanded, eight-piece band. And now that he has four CDs to his name, he says he’s starting to be able to present the kind of multifaceted live show he’s always wanted.
“It’s getting to a point, four records and some covers we haven’t released, (that) the set list feels pretty easy to write,” Lee said. “In the past, it was sort of challenging because you wanted to make sure you paced the set properly and everything. But this time out, I think it will be well on its way.”
