Rickie Lee

With her expressive soprano voice employing sudden alterations of volume and force, and her lyrical focus on Los Angeles street life, Rickie Lee Jones comes on like the love child of Laura Nyro and Tom Waits on her self-titled debut album…

Consulting theologians and Bible scholars during the 1990s, photographer, writer, graphic artist, and everyday mystic Lee Cantelon (aka Pennyhead) assembled a small book presenting the words of Jesus Christ (just Jesus' words, not the stuff surrounding them) in a fitting translation called The Words. He did it for the purpose of presenting those words to people who were not "religious" – people who were put off by organized religion or even offended by it…

Ghostyhead finds Rickie Lee Jones in the odd position of following a younger generation, as its languid trip-hop beats suggest that she has been listening to Portishead, Tricky, and Beth Orton. It is certainly a precarious situation, since she could seem out of touch and old-fashioned, but it is a makeover she pulls off surprisingly well…

Duchess of Coolsville is Rhino's three-CD career retrospective of the work of singer and songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, an artist who changed the face of pop in the 1970s in her own way beginning with her surprise hit "Chuck E's in Love." Since that time she has continued on a highly personal, often idiosyncratic path; one that does not always give the marketplace its due…

Life sounds fête champêtre for New Orleans resident Rickie Lee Jones on her most spirited album since 1989's Flying Cowboys. Just listen to her soar on the deliriously joyful "I Wasn't There", and the gorgeous R&B-inflected chorus of "Feet On The Ground"…

An eclectic collection of covers from one of jazz-pop's most eclectic performers, Pop Pop travels from the stage to tin pan alley through Jimi Hendrix's sky. Rickie Lee Jones cradles each of these songs with her pleading, gentle voice, backing them with subtle orchestration courtesy of notable performers including Robben Ford, Joe Henderson, and Charlie Haden…

Rickie Lee Jones "unplugged" – in fact, solo with an acoustic guitar or piano on all but a couple of tunes – Naked Songs is otherwise a retrospective concert album on which Jones cherry-picks songs from her five studio albums, including the hits "Chuck E.'s in Love" and "Young Blood," and others from her breakthrough debut record. The studio album arrangements always tried to support and augment Jones' idiosyncratic writing and playing style, which sounds less unusual when she is simply accompanying herself, and in many ways more effective. "Altar Boy," a previously unreleased song, strays into Leonard Cohen territory, mixing religion with eroticism.

After the critical (and commercial) success of her debut two years earlier, Rickie Lee Jones had a lot riding on her sophomore album, Pirates. From the opening track, "We Belong Together," Jones served notice that she was willing to challenge herself and experiment with more unusual, complex song structures…

Rickie Lee Jones released her auspicious self-titled debut album in 1979 and its equally impressive follow-up, Pirates, in 1981. By the spring of 1983, she apparently was not close to having a third full-length collection of all original songs ready, so Girl at Her Volcano appeared instead…