Rickie Lee Jones
Duchess of Coolsville
Rhino – 79715
visit Rickie's website
also available on amazon
This anthology comprises 3 discs and each one is jam packed with songs (the shortest is 14 songs) and gives a sampling of her whole career. There is also a very good booklet with some of her writings, notes by friends and fellow musicians, and exceptionally comprehensive notes about the individual songs, and the albums, and who helped or played on them: and also about art and particularly the art of writing, what it is and she views that it is done.
The first two discs contain songs from her albums “Rickie Lee Jones,” right up to “The Evening of My Best Day.” She might have by passed an album or two that she didn’t care for (unlike many anthologies where the artist is left out, she and Karen Almed produced this compilation), but this is a very complete sampling of her work, of course saying this you are going to find your favorite song left out. However disc 3 give you a rare bonus to make up for this. There are about 8 previously unreleased versions of songs, demos, songs from duet albums, and soundtracks, and the sound quality throughout is remarkable good and consistent.
The complete spectrum of her work is displayed here. Her voice ranges from jazz, to be-bop, to pop, to R & B, to poetry rant and just about any other direction she wants it to go. She takes each song, phrasing, word, syllable and note and breathes a life that is distinctly her own into it. If she didn’t write the song, and she did write most of these, she takes that song and makes it markedly her own. An exceptionally satisfying set of discs that gives a very thorough view of what she has created.
Special note of what Rhino has done with this; they produced an exceptional package, again continuing with their concept of having a comprehensive and as complete as possible retrospective of the work of important artists.