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Re: Rickie Lee Jones revisited

I think I conveyed, in a couple of my posts, that I was not disappointed in the music of this SACD. It's a very interesting concept, and a few of the tracks, are excellent. There are some that are quite esoteric, and, as you say, quite a departure. And, it's not the WORST sounding SACD I've come across.

But the "Pop Pop" and "Naked Songs" discs are about as good as it gets for pop music, which, generally speaking, is shoddily recorded. And so, this latest SACD was a bit deflating for me.

I am not, per se, a RLJ expert. But the material on her early records is excellent. But I think lots of folks overlook her "career" as an interpreter of classic popular songs. "Pop Pop" is a superlative collection of classic popular American songs. Another disc I forgot to mention earlier is "It's Like This" -- a kind of follow-up to "Pop," which also features covers. The selection of material on these two recordings is splendid, with compositions spanning artists from Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Winwood to Charlie Chaplin and Carolyn Leigh (an astonishingly good lyric writer that should be MUCH better known) and Hoagy Carmicheal and Gershwin.

Lovers of the craft of songwriting and great lyrics will find lots in these recordings to appreciate -- and RLJ's vocal performances are offbeat, disarming, and slyly masterful.

And, not to beat the same old drum, but the sonics on all three of these recordings is exemplary. And again, if I had to choose, I would say the live recording (featuring some of her very best original material) trumps the two studio recordings in this regard, but only by a smidge.



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