My guess is that singer/songwriter Amos Lee is considered an old soul by those who have known him since birth. His lyrics reflect resolute preoccupation with august themes. Using the pickax of Aristotelian logic, he trains the granite eye of inquiry upon the particular. He then mines from his examination new perceptions of universal truths. His treatises are formulated in song verses wherein he wrestles the weighty to a philosophical ground zero, and he grapples with the issues until he can rise to the higher ground of greater insight.

 

He sings with soul, too. As a child of the 70s, I retain an appreciation for the nakedness, sincerity, and historicity of music that strips the protective veneer of pretension from us all, for I came of age when being soulful was the quintessential goal of social evolution. There is no more meaningful compliment one can lay in a musician's guitar case than to say He has soul. Somehow, Amos Lee sings with the heavy, hurting soul of the Old South. In his voice, we hear echoes of oppressed people too intelligent not to try to give voice to injustice. When he sings, we hear the desperate spirit of a revival meeting. Because the voice is so authentic, the phrasing so intuitive, and the words so powerful, the music touches a nerve. This is a voice that microphones long to partner with.

All this would never fly except that Amos Lee's old-soul eyes are looking through the prism of a prophetic tradition. Consider his name. According to The Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Oxford University Press, 1968), amos is a verb meaning to carry a load.

Knowing this, before we even take a peek at the 8th Century B.C. writings gathered in The Bible's "The Book of Amos", we know a little bit about the author. Indeed, the prophet Amos bore the burdens of his times. He was a breeder of sheep whose prophesying expressed outrage at the shambles the Israelites had made of things. He warned, "Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail . . . The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:  'Surely I will never forget any of their works.'" (8:4,7) Amos, a social activist way before activism was cool, harbored a keen awareness that justice is so much at the core of spirituality, they are one and the same:  "But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (5:24)

The surname of this extraordinary troubadour comes from an Old English word, leah, or, clearing, as in a clearing of wood. And so Amos Lee is one who bears a heavy load, but he carries his burden of anguish into a clearing that has been leveled by his own labors. That clearing is his songs.

That his songs have touched our collective nerve is evidenced by the debut at #1 on the Billboard charts of his most recent record, released in January 2011, the magnificent Mission Bell. Lee has said that this record represents a conscious effort to sit with his ideas long enough to allow the music's sonic, searching, and spiritual qualities rise to the surface, fully-formed. [Note to Amos: It works. Do it again.]

Last night, at Cleveland's Jacobs Pavilion @ Nautica, I felt a strong sense of the presence of jazz great John Coltrane. In speaking of Coltrane's relevance, Bob Thiele, who produced Coltrane's legendary masterpiece, A Love Supreme, said, "It would seem to me you're either affected immediately or never. Coltrane affected me, and I'm honest enough to say I don't know why." Ravi Coltrane, son of the brilliant musician, said of his father's quartet, "They were a real band. These guys were really talking to each other, they knew how to finish each other's sentences."

As a performer, Lee affects audiences by initiating an invitation for them to participate in a call-and-response. Many respond by hearing not just the music; they hear the soul of the singer in the music. As evidenced at last night's concert, Lee is not only speaking to us. He is also speaking for us. And we are so connected to him that we are finishing his musical sentences.

Lee has said that he offers "another voice toward reason", but what a singular voice his is! His music contains such complexity, it reveals him to be simultaneously a prophet for our times as well as an echo of our collective past.

Influential author, poet, Zen master, teacher, peace activist, and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh discusses the concept of mindfulness in his book Living Buddha, Living Christ. He explains how practicing mindfulness leads to peace within, and that it is a necessary pre-condition for expanding peace all around us. He shares an old memory:  "When I was a young monk in Vietnam, each village temple had a big bell, like those in Christian churches in Europe and America. Whenever the bell was invited to sound (in Buddhist circles, we never say "hit" or "strike" a bell), all the villagers would stop what they were doing and pause for a few minutes to breathe in and out in mindfulness."

Mission Bell sounds a melodic call to mindfulness.

Two compelling songs on Mission Bell that highlight issues needing our attention are "Out of the Cold" and "Cup of Sorrow". A personal favorite, from Lee's 2008 record Last Days at the Lodge is the astonishing clarion call to action, "Jails and Bombs", which touches on the subject matter of my next book.

Lee's music escorts us to a place aside--a place where we feel safe enough to allow mindfulness to unfold. When we discover that his lyrics have brought us to the edge of a precipice, Lee holds on tight. He does not let us fall into an abyss. Instead, he pulls us up into a new understanding--a new place aside--where we 'get' what he has known all along:  the answers lie not in the simple identification and labeling of our problems. They lie in the love that blooms like a "Flower" in the sun of our reckoning. Will we continue to swallow up the needy? Will we continue to make the poor of the land fail?

It's as if Lee is conducting a call-and-response with social injustice itself. It is as if, through his music, he is trying to create a new alphabet that can spell what only the winds of eternity can express.

Seldom has the voice of reason sung so beautifully.