Amos Lee has long made “music to help listeners heal” (Salon), but after the release of his critically-lauded 2022 album Dreamland – he found himself diving back into the songs he personally leans on in trying times. Specifically, Lee revisited his “songwriting hero,” Lucinda Williams – the iconic musician he describes as “unapologetically sincere” and “a spiritual guide for me.” Now, Lee pays homage to Williams with a full album of covers from her iconic songbook – Honeysuckle Switches (The Songs of Lucinda Williams) – coming out on Record Store Black Friday (November 24) via Thirty Tigers. Williams has been a formative artist for Lee dating back to his teenage years – as an avid listener of WXPN in his native Philadelphia – and later he’d get the chance to collaborate with her on his Billboard chart-topping record Mission Bell, while the pair have also shared many stages over the years.“She is the most genuine and kind person,” recalls Lee. “As someone who wasn’t always readily available, her vulnerability opened my heart.”

Reckoning with his own loss and grief over the past year, Lee turned to the songs of his mentor as a source of healing – crafting Honeysuckle Switches as a way to thank Williams for getting him through life’s most difficult moments time and time again: “She has this persistence and will in her perspective, she embraces the sadness but is never enveloped by it.” Honeysuckle Switches features Williams originals from her breakout Sweet Old World to the modern-era classic Blessed. With the announcement of the album, Lee has also shared his soulful interpretation of “Greenville,” Williams’ collaboration with Emmylou Harris from her 1998 masterpiece Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. “It’s a breakup song but there’s also a kindness to it,” says Lee of “Greenville.” “There’s a lot of love in the lyrics – we’ve all been difficult and impulsive, but we are not unlovable or unsalvageable.”