Rickie Lee Jones: The "Equestrienne in the Circus of the Falling Star"*

When I'm lonely and I want company (and my husband and kids are not around), I like to listen to Rickie Lee Jones. On her first album, Rickie Lee Jones, released in 1978, there's a cut called Company. She transcends the gap between listener and performer, from I-never-met-you-before, to, I-know-exactly-how-you- feel. The song cries about separation from the beloved. "And I sure miss your company"

The first song I ever heard by her was the hit single from the first album, Chuck E.'s in Love. It sports a waggly little bass diddy that offsets her high, squeaky, 'hiding-out-in-the-alley' style voice. She swings, and yet her songs also have a soft, sad side. I was taking a walk one night in an apartment complex somewhere in California, and I heard one of her albums playing from a window. I stood on the sidewalk and listened to the whole thing, captivated. (As William Shakespeare said, "If music be the food of love, then play on.") Chuck E.'s in Love is a jumping song and so is Danny's All Star Joint on the flip side. This girl catches your attention!

"Oh dow-wown stairs in Danny's All-Star Joint
he's gotta juke box that goes doy - doy -"

Her music is punctuated with thigh slapping rhythms, skat singing, and stories of city life. The listener gets a mental visual of kids playing hooky in the alley and black musicians gathered impromptu, blowing jazz and blues in a smoke-filled room.

In 1981 she won the Grammy for Best New Artist, and later released her second album, Pirates. My favorite cut from that album is called Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking which typifies the feeling described above, as Rickie Lee and da boys shoot affectionate slang back and forth. She arranges beautiful horn underbellies that complement the keyboards and bass. The horns blow like hecklers and she responds vocally, "Doo wee oo, doo wee oo". Da boys, chuckling, answer enmasse, "I wanna boogie woogie in my socks!"

The Magazine, released in 1984 is a great sampling of her style. Juke Box Fury swings with tight harmonies and atypical rhythms. Each phrase paints a unique image. The cut, Gravity, sounds like an abstract painting. But the lyrics are pure poetry, with so much feeling:

"There are wounds that stir up the force of gravity
a cold that will wipe the hope from your eyes.
Young girl standing underneath the "L" train
Standing there, watching the trains go by...
You think that nobody knows where you are, girl
You think that nobody knows how this feels
Alone, in a world of your own,
there you are girl.
The small things float to the top of gravity. "

I recently saw the movie, Jerry McGuire and I kept hearing a snippet of her song, The Horses, from the Flying Cowboys album, playing over and over:

"That's the way it's gonna be little darlin'.
We'll be riding the horses...
And if you fall, I'll pick you up, pick you up..."

Such a sweet little theme, perfectly underscoring the character's loneliness in the film, as he deals with his career commitment vs. his commitment to true love. I think Rickie Lee Jones is similar to Bonnie Raitt, in that she has a loyal following, but is due for greater recognition. I'm hoping in the future that she will have a Grammy award coup like Bonnie Raitt had in 1989. I think anyone who doesn't give her music a good listen is doing themselves a vast disservice.

This, but for the exception of the latest album, Ghostyhead. I listened to it and thought, "Oh my goodness, what happened to her?" She explains in notes on a web site about the album, that she was inspired by Hip Hop music and was writing experimentally and had high hopes for the album. I found it to be repetitive and rather dark sounding. But then, I don't like Hip Hop.

We all have a bad day now and then, and so a songwriter can come up with a bad album. I give her credit for trying new sounds, but I hope she goes back to her joyful, sympathetic roots, because that is where her gift is, in my opinion.

She succeeds in this vein once again, as guest vocalist on the cut, "O Holy Night" on the Chieftain's 1997 Christmas album, the "Bells of Dublin". So sweet you could cry.

(*subtitle of the song "Deep Space" from "The Magazine", by Rickie Lee Jones)