Rickie Lee Jones Receives Some Divine Inspiration

[Neecy]

Her last CD took on Bush and the Patriot Act. Looks like this one will take on the religious right.
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Ms. Jones was explaining the premise behind her new album, “The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard,” out today on New West Records. The project is an attempt to explore the words and ideas of Jesus in a contemporary context, backed by the most rocked-up music of her almost-30-year career.

---snip---

“Lee is a devout Christian, and I’m not,” she said, “but I noticed that he won’t say he’s a Christian because people make these assumptions about what kind of person he is. You have these awful preachers, these creepy and terrible people, maligning and distorting the message, so who wants to be associated with that? I wanted to talk about how these people have absconded with these ideas.”

--snip---

It’s unlikely territory for a woman who shot to fame in 1979 as a beret-topped inheritor of the Beat tradition — the “Duchess of Coolsville,” as she titled a 2005 anthology. Ms. Jones, 52, is also active in liberal politics, maintaining an issues-oriented Web site, furnitureforthepeople.com, in addition to her own site, rickieleejones.com. But she says her beliefs are precisely what fueled “Exposition Boulevard.”

“Prayer in general is used as a kind of secret word for ‘Republican,’ ” she said. “Nobody is really saying, ‘Show me how I can serve and help me find my way’; they’re saying ‘Give me this.’ For the most part, people use God as Santa Claus.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/arts/music/06rick.html?ref=arts

[stellanoir]

1. She is truly amazing

If you don't believe me then play "company" to anyone who is grieving.

That was from a long time ago. She's done plenty since then. "We Belong Together" from the 80's. "Talk in Many Languages' from the 90's. Should pay more attention to more recent stuff.

Luv her totally.

[Neecy]

3. yep...

If you want to give a listen to something a little newer, I really love Traffic from Paradise. Great songwriting and her voice sounds good (I have to say that time hasn't treated her voice very well - she's struggled with alcoholism on and off for the last 25 years and it's taken a toll).

She's selling some of her bootlegged stuff and a lot of it is really terrific. "Dat Dere" is a classic.

https://www.greatbigisland.com/greatbigisland92-33/mck-cgi/mp3list.cgi?search=rickie&coname=Rickie%20Lee%20Jones&pagename=1

[teriyaki jones]

6. I really love Traffic from Paradise, too!

Haven't listened to it in a while, thanks for mentioning it--I can add it to my iPod!

[salin]

4. Me, too...

got hooked with the more fluff - "Rickie's in Love" when i was young. I matured and gained a greater appreaciation for her music. *Note to self* go buy the recent stuff...

A total nonsequitor - back when I was young - and worked in DC a friend and I were both off for the day and decided to take a day off from work to go to the Mall with our guitars, play and see what happened (with our guitar cases opened, of course). We got some claps, and a some folks who hung out - but not any 'coins' until another colleague (also off for the day) strolled by (how embarassing) with his parents - and they tossed in some coins (and then a few others did). It was a 'for the experience' sorta thing. Point of the story - per this thread - is that someone who stopped and listened for awhile compared me to Rickie Lee Jones - what a compliment. I didn't play her music (did so some early Carly Simon) - but the comparison was made - and the compliment was glombed onto by me - especially since our 'open guitar cases for donations' didn't go so very well. We did it exactly *one* time. It was fun. And a wee bit humbling.

[MoseyWalker]

2. I have loved that woman since I first heard her name

big kick.

[whalerider55]

5. did an interview with her about 2 years ago

she has tremendous humility and passion about injustice.
it was a phone interview, prior to her coming to town to do a show.
after the show, i was taken backstage to meet her.
i remember how tired and fragile she looked, like she had left so much of herself on the stage and with the audience. It was a big, ersatz dressing room, and she was all alone in the room, which seemed suddenly to dwarf her. it was a little unsettling, to go from seeing her larger than life onstage to being so fragile and human offstage. she shook my hand, and thanked me for writing such kind words.
i thanked her for being such a poetic, lyrical inspiration in my life.
she smiled.

whalerider

[stellanoir]

7. she always is and always will be an absolute pistol IMHO

Though now I'm listening to Los Lonely Boiys.

"How Far Is Heaven" is on.. . .what can I say.

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. Remember "Easy Money"?

Those were the days.

[petgoat]

9. Rickie Lee Jones has signed the World Can't Wait statement

Maybe you should too.

YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

People look at all this and think of Hitler - and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.

Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this.

There is not going to be some magical "pendulum swing." People who steal elections and believe they're on a "mission from God" will not go without a fight.

There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.

But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn - or be forced - to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it.

And there is a way. We are talking about something on a scale that can really make a huge change in this country and in the world. We need more than fighting Bush's outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.

Acting in this way, we join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped.

This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.

The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2

[libnnc]

10. Love her to infinity and back

I'm listening to Live At Red Rocks right now.

I listened to Evening of My Best Day coming home this evening.

[skids]

11. Been meaning to browse samples...

...to see if any of her latest stuff is along the lines of the trip-hop styled Ghostiehead album. Really love that disk.