Rickie Lee Jones – Rickie Lee Jones

Sometimes records are like a new love – all infatuation and exhilaration until the initial interest begins to wane, at other times an album grabs you from the outset and then becomes something more meaningful over time as you develop a deeper appreciation.

Rickie Lee Jones’ debut album is a lot like the latter for me. Initially it was the bright and breezy charm of the hit Chuck E’s In Love, the gorgeous pop sensibility of Young Blood and the funky groove of Danny’s All Star Joint, but later it was the more introspective jazz influenced Coolsville and the meandering, sleepy ambience of The Last Chance Texaco that fired my enthusiasm for the Rickie Lee Jones album.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the songs that first won me over with this record, it’s just that the other songs began to take on greater significance the more I listened to Rickie Lee Jones. Like all good romances this album still knows how to woo me with its charms and with Rickie Lee’s gorgeous voice how could she fail?

This album swings with a kind of laidback jazz that sounds both contemporary and timeless. Easy Money with its singular double bass intro and plucked rhythm guitar could have been written in the 1930’s, while On Saturday Afternoons In 1963 has the most beautifully evocative piano melody combined with a gentle string arrangement and reflective lyric that again sounds much older than the era suggested by the song. For a teenager of the 1970’s like myself who had grown up on a diet of rock n roll, rhythm and blues and pop this album was an exotic treasure – it sounded like nothing I’d heard before.

It didn’t hurt that Rickie Lee Jones had an astonishing array of L.A.’s finest on board to help her make this record with Steve Gadd & Jeff Porcaro (drums), Willie Weeks (bass), Dr. John (keys), Randy Newman (synthesiser) and Michael McDonald on backing vocals among them. That’s one hell of a talent roster for a debut album! Although when you realise that the demos for some of these songs had been shopped around Los Angeles for a few years Rickie Lee Jones was already familiar to many musicians and songwriters long before her debut album was recorded. By the time a deal was imminent a bidding war evolved between the major record labels with Jones reportedly signing with Warner because they had Randy Newman on their roster.

When Jones eventually broke through with her debut single the burning question on everyone’s lips was, who the hell is “Chuck E”? The smitten centrepiece of Rickie’s song was Chuck E. Weiss, an L.A. based blues musician who first heard Jones perform while he was washing dishes backstage at the Troubadour. It was Weiss that told Tom Waits about this amazing girl he heard singing that night. According to Waits’ biographer Barney Hoskyns in his book Lowside Of The Road, Waits said that when he first saw Jones perform he was besotted: “her style on stage was appealing and arousing. Sort of like a sexy white spade”.

Soon Jones, Waits and Weiss were kicking around L.A. together, with Waits and Weiss holed up at the infamous Tropicana Motel. Local hangouts included Duke’s Coffee Shop and The Whiskey Au Go Go, but Jones, Waits and Weiss were frequently bar hopping across L.A. with their own take on the boho/beatnik life. Jones’ songs reflected that life, never more so than on this incredibly charming debut album where all of those characters sprang to life in vivid colour.

Chuck E’s In Love became a smash hit around the world with Jones quickly becoming far more famous than her boyfriend Waits, who already had five albums under his belt by then. And while there are obvious similarities between their musical and literary influences showing up in both Jones’ and Waits’ song writing at that time it wasn’t long before both of their careers moved into differing creative directions, as did their relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-skfqam0-I

The more pensive and perceptive moments on Jones’ debut include the gorgeous Last Chance Texaco, metaphorically comparing a lament for lost love and a last chance for redemption with a broken down car. On the surface it doesn’t sound like a great analogy for love, but with that languid guitar gently strumming underneath the song it perfectly captures the essence of some long forgotten truck stop and the quiet desperation of possibly your last hope in the wilderness. It’s more Springsteen than Springsteen.

Coolsville opens with the line I and Bragger and Junior Lee, a threesome that beat anybody’s bet, cuz we was Coolsville. It’s probably not a direct reference to Jones, Waits and Weiss but the parallel of three hipsters who know how to play the cards being Coolsville is enough to draw some obvious comparisons. The song has a fabulous dramatic feel like a noir detective story, as if Jones is doing an update on Polanski’s Chinatown, with his take on 1930’s L.A. made just a couple of years earlier.

It’s the songs that swing that really give the album it’s vibrancy – Chuck E’s In Love, Young Blood, Danny’s All Star Joint and the irresistible Weasel And The White Boys Cool, an early Jones composition co-written with Alfred Johnson. It’s a deceptively tight arrangement played with a loose feel that really opens up in the back end of the song with some wonderful playing.

The final word on the album belongs to After Hours (Twelve Bars Past Goodnight). It’s a cute little music/drinking pun and a sobering finish to this gorgeous album, a song filled with melancholy, hope and just a little vulnerability from Jones who had started the album with such swagger where Chuck E’s in love with the little girl who’s singin’ this song.

After leading us on a trail of songs about hangin’ out in pool halls, bars and all star joints with the under riders on the boulevard at some point the party (and this record) had to end:

Say goodnight America

The world still loves a dreamer 

And all the gang has gone home

And I’m standing on the corner

All alone.

Here’s a few Sound Distractions faves by Rickie Lee Jones: