Album Review: AJ Lee and Blue Summit, ‘City of Glass’
Although City of Glass is AJ Lee and Blue Summit’s third studio album, it’s their first release on a label, Signature Sounds. Produced by Lech Wierzynski of the California Honeydrops, the eclectic album unfolds spaciously with an organic and intimate live feel, as if listeners are sitting in the studio or on the front porch with the band.
Jan Purat’s gamboling fiddle darts under and around Lee’s mandolin strums on the minor-chord old-time “Hillside,” an evocative anthem to resilience and strength in the face of gradual deterioration. The towering fiddle run on the instrumental bridge conveys hope in the midst of loss. Lee’s voluptuous vocals and the band’s slow burning country soul treatment of the Harlan Howard chestnut, “He Called Me Baby,” featuring a blazing lead guitar solo on the bridge, convey the unquenchable longing of the lover in the song.
The rollicking “Sick on a Plane,” punctuated by Purat’s Stéphane Grappelli-like fiddling, delivers a wry take on being trapped next to an ill passenger on a flight, while the jazz-inflected country shuffle “Bakersfield Clay,” replete with aching pedal steel, features sparkling lead guitar and mandolin runs on the instrumental bridge and glorious yodeling on the outro. The gorgeous bluegrass waltz “Bedside Window” floats along an exquisite musical bouquet of sound as the notes of each instrument waft into the spaces between Lee’s vocals. Molly Tuttle lends her ethereal vocals and her impeccable guitar stylings to “Can’t Find You at All,” which was written by her father Jack. Banjoist Luke Abbott joins in on the title track, on which each instrument stretches out to create a boisterous, carefree bluegrass jam.
City of Glass showcases a group that continues to develop steadily to produce memorable and smooth songwriting and musical grooves.
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City of Glass is available HERE
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BlueSummitMusic.com
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Music & Merch
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