AJ Lee & Blue Summit City of Glass
AJ Lee & Blue Summit
City of Glass
Signature Sounds
AJ Lee & Blue Summit have delivered a transcendent third album in City of Glass, each of its songs radiating extraordinary art and easy appeal. Dressed in as much of their home state California’s country-folk as mountain bluegrass, they honor tradition but benefit from modern-day vision. That vision was certainly present on their 2019 debut, Like I Used To, and its follow-up two years later, I’ll Come Back. But the songwriting and performances this time around resonate with a supreme sense of confidence, and arrival. This should be AJ Lee & Blue Summit’s breakout recording.
Singer and mandolinist Lee was a young teenager when she and her friend, the current guitar and bluegrass sensation Molly Tuttle, played with Molly’s brother, guitarist Sully Tuttle, in their dad Jack Tuttle’s band. The Tuttle’s with AJ Lee cut two fine albums well worth seeking out. Blue Summit features AJ and Sully along with songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Scott Gates, and fiddler Jan Purat. Jack Tuttle must have been one heck of a teacher and role model, because these players are all wizards on their instruments, and they sing with catching charm.
Produced by The California Honeydrops’ Lech Wierzynski, the naturalness in the sound of City of Glass jumps out nearly as much as the quality in the songs. “Hillside” opens the album on gloomy tones, but quickly turns into a world of splendor, the instruments and voices fluttering like butterflies. Lee wrote the song while thinking about woman’s empowerment. But next, in “He Called Me Baby,” she surrenders to age-old emotion, the song a deeply felt lament about a lost love, its simple beauty breathtaking. Lee sings in a high, gospel-infused tenor, like warm honey in a crystal stream. She is fabulous in every context. In “Sick on a Plane,” her distress, her compassion, and her humor are all discernable.
The title song, “City of Glass,” represents a lifetime’s hard work, the players getting down like old-time bluegrassers. “Toys” also feels old-timey, and the disturbing subject that songwriter Gates sings about in a perfectly old-timey voice is unfortunately as old as the hills. Gates also sings his rollicking “Solicitor Man,” an album highlight about a musician busking in the streets. The gentle “I Can’t Find You at All” is a ballad as good as they come. Written by Jack Tuttle, it features Molly Tuttle in wondrous harmony with her old friend. Funny that the elder Tuttle wrote a song about being “ghosted.” But not surprising, because this City of Glass does have it all.
Tom Clarke for MAS
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