Rickie Lee Jones at City Winery – as brilliant as ever

By Mark McNease

I’ve been a fan of Rickie Lee Jones since her first album in 1979. That album included what was a blessing and a curse for Jones, the song ‘Chuck E’s in Love (listen).’ If you ask most people who she is, if they know her at all, they’ll say, ‘Didn’t she have that song about Chucky?’ Rickie Lee Jones is much deeper and bigger than that. Not to fault that song, but her debut album also included ‘Last Chance Texaco,’ ‘Coolsville,’ and one of the best songs of loss and longing I’ve ever heard, ‘Company (listen)’: I’ll remember you too clearly
but I’ll survive another day
conversations to share
when there’s no one there
I’ll imagine what you’d say Her follow up album, Pirates, took three years and showed her orchestral side. It was brilliant, and nearly everything she’s done since then has been. I’m biased. This is not a review of her latest music. This is an unabashed love letter to a singer/songwriter who belongs among the greats. Her contemporary and one-time love interest Tom Waits wasn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until last year. Jones may never be, but that’s like bemoaning a great actor who never got an Oscar, and there are more than a few of those. Jones writes music, not tunes. Her melodies and arrangements are intricate, often haunting. She’s been unafraid to make the music she wants to make, and if it means she’s playing venues like City Winery, so be it. She belongs in this kind of intimate setting, not Madison Square Garden. Last night she played all old songs, almost entirely from her first two albums. She came on 40 minutes late, which a couple of my group found annoying but I said hey, she’s 56 and she’s been doing this for a very long time, let her be a little late. Once she and the band took the stage all else was forgotten.
I didn’t know what to expect. She’s been known to play her new CD’s and no old songs, but last night was a love fest on memory lane. The audience knew every song, and of course I recognized them all, quite a few from 1981’s Pirates. Jones got emotional when she sang a song about her daughter, now 21, and she said she’s spent most of her life alone – not because she’s hard to get along with but because everyone else is. She’s widened over the years, as have most of us, but she still commands a stage, sounds amazing, and is clearly in a league of her own. I won’t review City Winery itself, which is a great place to see a show, except to say go for the first floor seats. I’d never been there, and when I booked the tickets online a couple months ago I went by the seating chart. I got “VIP” seats in the elevated back area but 1) our seats had no backs, 2) it was warmer up there on an already hot night, 3) it feels cut off from what is actually a large crowd, and 4) you get a better view on the floor! I’d go back for sure, but now I know where to actually sit, and for a lower price.]]>