It was another glorious evening at Boarding House Park with Amos Lee appearing as part of the Lowell Summer Music Series.

Amos Lee

This was Amos’ second appearance at the Series and he was obviously happy to be back there.

Amos

Amos released his sixth album, ‘Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song’, late last year and is touring in support of it. As you would imagine, he played a number of songs from that release.

Amos

I have seen Amos in several iterations; the first time he was solo acoustic. The second time he had three other musicians with him. This time, he had a six-piece band (including himself). I loved him solo, but I think my favorite is this band configuration.

Amos and band

The five musicians he had with him supported him well. Zach Djanikian on mandolin, guitar, and saxophone; Annie Clements on bass and vocals; Andy Keenan on guitar, banjo, saxophone and vocals; Jaron Olevsky on keyboards, accordion and vocals; and drummer Freddie Berman comprised the band.

Andy Keenan

Annie Clements

Zach Djanikian

Jaron Olevsky

Freddie Berman (in back)

The setlist spanned Amos’ career, drawing from all his releases. A few people were disappointed that he did not play their favorite songs, but in a 75-minute (including encore) set it wasn’t possible to play a lot of songs.

Amos and Annie

They did play the Queen song ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, but that is the only title I recall (I need to start taking notes…).

Amos’ style cannot be described in one word. There’s soul, folk, and blues in his songs but I would not describe him as a soul singer, folk musician, or a blues man. He’s not really a rocker either, yet the crowd certainly rocked out to his music.

Amos

Opening the show for Amos was Liz Longley, a favorite of veterans of the Series. Liz opened for Amos four years ago; this video was shot (not by me, although I was at the show) at that show and gives you an idea of how Liz can move an audience!

Liz Longley

Liz is about to release her self-titled new studio album, and it’s another winner.

Liz

She is a young, relatively recent graduate of Berklee College of Music, where one of her mentors – since I’m sure she had a number of them – was Livingston Taylor, who brought her with him for his 2009 appearance at the Series. We all fell in love with her then, and the love affair continues.

Liz

My only complaint about the show was that it was too short! I would have enjoyed hearing more of Amos – and Liz as well – but it was not to be. I guess I’ll have to keep going to his shows!

Amos and Liz during the encore – love the smile on Amos’ face!