SASS 'N' ATTITUDE & BANDAGED PAIN

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[This review originally appeared at BigBitch.com on 2006, May 24.] 
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RICKIE LEE JONES
by Rickie Lee Jones
released: 1979
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In 1979, Rickie Lee Jones released what was probably the most fully-realized and self-assured debut album by any singer of any genre at any time. No other vocalist ever broke from the starting gate with this much aplomb, looseness and "If you don't like it, you can hit the road, Jack" attitude. In a sense, this was both a blessing and a curse: she made it obvious immediately that she was a prodigiously talented songwriter who put her songs over with a finely-tuned, stylistic sauciness and a broken-hearted sincerity. But at the same time, she set the bar so high with her self-titled 'RICKIE LEE JONES' that subsequent disappointment was almost inevitable.
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It was a different world at the tail end of the '70s: originality was still a desirable trait in new artists being developed (unlike the current situation where the new bands and performers seem like nothing more nor less than Xerox copies of last year's hottest model), and I was a 20-year-old looking squarely at a future full of pristine promise (unaware that the best I'd ever do is write semi-appreciated reviews for a then unimaginable Internet shopping site).
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When Rickie Lee Jones released her second collection, 'PIRATES', I initially thought it eclipsed her brilliant debut (I used to sniff Amyl Nitrite while tripping out over Steve Gadd's quirky drumming on the track, 'We Belong Together'), but in hindsight, I realize that the further she went with sonic exploration into highly personal expression, the further she drifted from really making that human connection with her listeners over a shared emotional understanding.
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But on 'RICKIE LEE JONES', with its Jazzy arrangements and stellar musicianship, her poetry was conveyed through exaggerated (and perhaps just a trace too-mannered), flouncy, bohemian sass 'n' attitude upbeat numbers, or ultra-sensitive, lost 'n' lonely ballads of bandaged pain that strike right at the heart.
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In the SASS 'N' ATTITUDE department there's...
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NIGHT TRAIN:
"Swing low, Saint Cadillac / Tearin' down the alley" 
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YOUNG BLOOD:
"But she ain't running / She's walking a little slow / And she ain't crying / She's just singin' a little low / They say this city will make you dirty but you look alright / You feel real pretty when he's holding you tight / City will make you mean but that's the makeup on your face / Love will wash you clean in the night's disgrace"
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DANNY'S ALL-STAR JOINT:
"You can't break the rules until you know how to play the game / But if you just want to have a little fun / You can mention my name" 
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WEASEL AND THE WHITE BOYS COOL:
"You dancin' in the welfare line, Sal / Actin' like some jerk-off fool / When we could lay out eatin' peaches on the beaches / A weasel in a White boys cool" 
(And I can personally recall a time when I did eat a peach on Venice Beach- the superfunky L.A. hotspot where Rickie first developed these songs in the beer bars and bistros along the boardwalk while dogs went airborne over the sand to snag Frisbees in flight and the carnival of human wackiness paraded under the California sun.)
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But even in many of Rickie's thumpin', bumpin', hip-grindin' upbeat numbers, a trace of her melancholy muse can be found: Consider this line from the aforementioned YOUNG BLOOD:
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"Keep a third eye watching behind you / You never know when you're making a memory / They will wish they were here together again, someday." 
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You won't feel the full impact of that sentiment until you are in your mid-forties, but you'll really understand it then.
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In the BANDAGED PAIN department there's...
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ON SATURDAY AFTERNOONS IN 1963:
"The most as you'll ever go / Is back where you used to know / If grownups could laugh this slow"
(If you can't detect two or three worlds in that lyric, then you'd better just stick with the crude pseudo-machismo of your Eminem and Insane Clown Posse.)
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THE LAST CHANCE TEXACO:
"There was this block-busted blonde / He loved her free parts and labor / But she broke down and died / And threw all the rods he gave her / But this one ain't fuel-injected / Her plug's disconnected / She gets scared and she stalls / She just needs a man, that's all"
(This song contains the greatest automotive imagery ever penned. Too bad for you, Springsteen!)
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COOLSVILLE:
"I and Bragger and Junior Lee / That's the way we always thought it would be / In the Winston lips of September / How we met / Decked out like aces / We'd beat anybody's bet / Cuz we was Coolsville"
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COMPANY:
"I'll see you in another life now, baby / I'll free you in my dreams / But when I reach across the galaxy / I will miss your company" 
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Me 'n' the boys were cruisin' the 405 freeway on our way to see Rickie Lee Jones perform at The Universal Amphitheater in 1983. We were all singin' in Tiburon (our permanently topless, 1963 Cadillac), when I realized that I had forgotten the glasses I'd recently begun wearing at night to compensate for my nearsightedness. Rickie was in fine vocal form that night, but she appeared to me like just a greyish, blurry form on the stage. While goin' home that evening, all the boys could talk about was how she had performed braless in a sheer, see-through blouse. I never did determine whether they were serious or just teasing the myopic maroon in the backseat.
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If you want to hear some authentic art from the 1970s, some street-smart, toe-tappin' jive-rock and moving poetry that you can hum along with, then let 'RICKIE LEE JONES' keep you COMPANY. In the song AFTER HOURS (Twelve Bars Past Goodnight), Rickie sings, "Say goodnight, America / The world still loves a dreamer." And here in 2006, I'm still dreaming that someday I'll find my misplaced glasses and then SEE if I can write something more worthwhile than a bunch of semi-appreciated product reviews for an Internet shopping site. Wish me luck, America.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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