Amos Lee performs Monday at Liberty Hall. Tickets are 2.50 in advance or 6.50 the day of the show.

For Amos Lee, being a musician means listening to others and collaborating. It means learning the nuances of various musical styles and adapting them to mesh with his own.

“I’ll listen to anything,” Lee says. “I’m voracious in what I like and what I’m interested in. I used to work in a record store and I think that really created a wider spectrum of understanding than I had before.”

His sound is hard to pigeonhole. It encompasses his smooth, earthy vocals, a folk-influenced acoustic guitar style, soulful homages to R&B and the twang and slide of a steel guitar — and that’s just getting started.

Amos Lee performs Monday at Liberty Hall. Tickets are 2.50 in advance or 6.50 the day of the show.

Perhaps this is why there are so many guest musicians on his upcoming fourth album, “Mission Bell,” which goes on sale this Tuesday. From backing band Calexico, to Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam, to Lucinda Williams, and the inimitable Willie Nelson, the varied and colorful cast of collaborators helps paint around the edges of an already elaborate canvas.

“The whole recording process was a good story, from beginning to end,” Lee says. “It was pretty focused — as focused as I can be. The environment was very freeing and it was really great. There was tons of old gear, tons of old keyboards and guitars. You don’t feel at any point that you can’t do it.”

Lee says the writing process, with Calexico, was slower with than usual on “Mission Bell,” but rewarding in the end.

“Once we had songs, I decided it was just going to be what it was. Here’s a song, let’s go in with the idea of serving these songs and getting the most out of them that we can. It was an adventure playing music.”

The inspiration for Lee’s songs on the album comes from myriad directions in his life, from both internal and external sources, he says.

“There are a lot of personal stories there, but there’s also a lot taken from the experiences I see in others. I feel like the best songs I’ve written are very autobiographical, but at the same time, very detached. There’s a sort of synthesis that happens there — between what you’re going through and what someone else is going through. With art, it’s such a gift to be able to experience life through the eyes of another character.”

Lee says his songwriting style has changed little with his growing popularity. Since the release of his eponymous first album in 2005, he has been positively reviewed by a growing legion of music magazines and newspapers, many buzzing about his up-and-coming star power. Lee, however, says he feels no pressure to write a certain song a certain way. He says his relationship with his label, Blue Note Records, has been one of mutual respect from the beginning.

“I haven’t consciously changed. Any evolution is based on what music I’ve listened to. I can’t say there’s been a real want-to to write a more commercial sound. The people at Blue Note Records are open to whatever I want to put out. They don’t squelch anything.”

What he does want to get across is his deep love of all things music. He wants his albums and live shows to engage the audience and make them re-examine how they look at the world.

“I just want people to be able to experience the dynamic range of the songs, and I would like for the evening to be dynamic for the listener. Hopefully they can leave different than they came. The goal of art is to change people and change the atmosphere.”

This is a sentiment Lee understands on a personal level. Before he was able to write songs for a living, Lee worked as an elementary school teacher. It was by listening to music that he eventually decided to quit his day job and fully devote his life to performing.

“It was a process. Just getting to be around musicians was really the reason. Until that point I didn’t realize how entranced I was by it, or how important making music should be.”

Lee looks back on his years as a teacher and finds similarities between the two jobs that both require a lot of listening.

“Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs, I think. You talk about being in a room with 30 children with different learning styles. As a musician, you’re sort of in a familiar place in some ways, as you’re trying to connect to people, but the rules and restrictions are much less. The concrete results as a teacher sometimes can be so rewarding, because you know every day you go in there and you’re impacting someone’s life, hopefully in a positive way.”

Perhaps due in part to the time he spent teaching children, Lee believes his music is timeless, ageless.

“There’s a barometer to (his audience). It’s anything from 2-year-olds to 80-year-olds and everything in between, regardless of outward trait. I think that’s what music is, that it’s more an inside connection than a definition.”