Certain artists hold such a powerful place in my heart, that, when I hear them perform live, there’s no such thing as being purely present in the moment. Rickie Lee Jones’ Pirates, The Magazine, and Flying Cowboys albums are so deeply embedded in the soundtrack of my life that it’s hard to think of certain memories without hearing her voice singing along in my head.
I was with Rickie Lee Jones at the Roxy and the Troubadour in L.A. in the 80s, I was with her again at The Viper Room in the 90s, and several random places in the 2000s. And I was happily with her again at the Lobero on February 1, for yet another beautifully moving show. That intimate venue is so perfect for an artist like Jones, who draws you with her unique smoky voice and mischievous personality, accompanied nicely in this case by vocalist-violinist Petra Haden and percussionist-drummer Mike Dillon, whose vibraphone efforts work particularly well with Jones’ songbook.
“You guys are so lucky to live here. I never fell in love with this town before. Tonight I love it,” was Jones’ greeting to the sold out crowd. Kicking off the night with “Weasel and the White Boys Cool” from her self-titled debut album in 1979, it was quickly evident how savvy the now 70-year-old Jones was to use Haden to fill in vocals while still maintaining her distinctly evocative voice, which is sometimes compared to Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell, but to me, her jazz-pop-poetry could only be Rickie Lee, which is part of what makes it so special and affecting.
There was such a fun energy as she encouraged the audience to sing along with “Love’s Gonna Bring Us Back Alive” (from Flying Cowboys) and her breakout hit “Chuck E’s in Love.” Not surprisingly we all knew the words.
“I’m so happy to be playing music,” said Jones after a particularly lovely rendition of “A Tree on Allenford,” from her 2003 album The Evening of My Best Day. Rather than playing standards, as might have been expected, from her latest album, Pieces of Treasure, she was all over her own musical map, playing “Altar Boy” from 1993’s Traffic From Paradise, which has the memorable intro “A monk with a hard on in a lavender robe/That scratches his thighs for the height that he strode,” and “A Spider in the Circus of the Falling Star,” from 2015’s The Other Side of Desire.
I particularly enjoyed a segment where she moved from the guitar to the piano for some beautiful harmonies with Haden on “Living It Up,” “Pirates,” and “On Saturday Afternoons in 1963” (where Haden accompanied her on the violin).
In meeting the need to keep things interesting for herself — for example, with the 1979 tune “Young Blood,” which has the lyrics “there’s always something happening here,” Jones said, “I reinvent it every time I play it. Otherwise I would shoot myself every time” — she also continuously keeps things interesting for her audiences. There IS always something happening here, and in the case of Rickie Lee Jones, it’s always something pretty great!
