Rickie Lee Jones

Rickie Lee Jones
a.k.a. Rick Jones

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RICKIE LEE’S NEW DAY
Twenty-five years ago, Rickie Lee Jones shot to the top of the pop charts singing about a certain Chuck E. falling in love. The first track of The Evening of My Best Day opens with “Ugly Man,” about a certain George W. -- only it’s no love song. With her singular, idiosyncratic voice and strong instincts as a songwriter, Jones has crafted a set of originals that range in emotion from tender to playful to downright angry. On several tracks, her lyrics are pointedly critical of the Bush administration, especially “Tell Somebody,” an anthem in protest of the Patriot Act. Larry Blumenfeld asked Jones about the musical and political impulses behind the new CD.

Barnes & Noble.com: The sessions that led to this album were initially for someone else’s project, right?

Rickie Lee Jones: Yes. Originally, I was going to help [guitarist and co-producer] David Kalish on his record. Once I was over there a while I said, “How about we use these songs on my record. And he said, “OK.”

B&N.com: “Little Mysteries” reminds me of old Al Green recordings. How did that track come about, musically?

RLJ: That was one of the first songs we did. It started with me, alone in the studio, rubbing my blue jeans and saying, “This is the sound I want.” We sampled that sound, and we sampled a dog playing with a rubber toy. And then, some Venetian blinds. When we went into the studio, we had these sounds to work with percussively. We built the song on those sounds.

B&N.com: How did the collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell and his bandmates, drummer Kenny Wolleson and bassist Tony Scherr, happen?

RLJ: One of our engineers said that Bill was coming to the studio and that he’d be great to work with. I hadn’t heard his music, but I knew his reputation as a player and as a person. He stayed an extra day to play with us. When you work with an intact, jazzy type of band like that, you get to work with musicians who aren’t afraid, whose time is perfect, and whose harmonic sense is perfect. And you don’t have to explain anything to them. That’s what I seek.

B&N.com: I would hate to try and throw you into one stylistic bag or another.

RLJ: Good - then don’t do it!

B&N.com: Oh, so you’d rather not talk about jazz and pop and that sort of thing?

RLJ: Well, there’s the school I come from, which in general is Motown, pop music, the Beatles. I was also educated by great jazz. My father played me great jazz recordings. But the thing I listened to as a kid, what’s most in my bones, is R&B. And then there’s my own goofy personality. I simply cannot sing it the same way twice. It takes a certain kind of player to go with that personality. In that way and in my inclinations toward certain chord inversions, I tend to be jazz-like. But I find a lot of jazz these days is over-studied and dead.

B&N.com: Another tune on the CD, “It Takes You There,” sounds a lot like vintage {|Fleetwood Mac. |}

RLJ: I thought that to myself as the production developed. I think the main reason it sounds like Fleetwood Mac was that this drummer [Pete Thomas] stuck it in this pocket the way Mick Fleetwood used to.

B&N.com: “Bitchenostrophy” is one of the more light-hearted tunes. What’s with that title?

RLJ: It’s a made-up word. It evokes the term “bitchin’.” And that reminds me of California in 1974 or 1978 - the puffed-up hair and all that. There are a lot of strains of Cailfornia-ness all over the record. It’s California, the good and the bad, with me remarking on it all.

B&N.com: Beginning with the very first song on the CD, your lyrics are overtly political. Is there a danger right now of speaking out politically in light of, say, the Dixie Chicks episode?

RLJ: It’s hard to believe something like the Dixie Chicks being attacked. But that has caused people who are very left to say nothing. There are a lot of people who give Bush and his administration mixed reviews. Which is beyond me: George Bush is so clearly evil, Dick Cheney is so clearly evil.

B&N.com: When you sing about Bush, “He’s an ugly man,” or when you sing “Tell somebody what’s happening in the U.S.A.”- these lyrics are direct and matter-of-fact. It almost reminds me of Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield.

RLJ: Absolutely! That was my inspiration. I listened to songs like “Pusher Man”. Those lyrics say it exactly as it is. They say: “I’m going to be naked -- but not naïve -- and just say that there’s a problem, and say precisely what the problem is."

October, 2003