hehehe - Had a little too much fun there. I was having so much fun that I actually crashed my computer. No harm done though. Now then....

I've been a big fan of Rickie Lee Jones since her first album came out. After I got my first copy of Magazine I think I played it everyday until I was about 23. This is the cover art for the rerelease. The original cover was of Ricki wearing a black lace costume with matching hat and gloves very consistant with her image at the time. Inside the album (that's how old I am, it was an album) was a wall poster of her in the same costume which I thumb tacked to the ceiling above my bed. Quite simply I thought she was beautiful.

There is something classic about this time in history for me. It feels as if it was the last time the American marketing machine was willing to make a pretense at taking the buying public seriously. Rickie Lee was, and still is beautiful, but it isn't the glaring glam doll type of beauty that gets produced by the music industry today. For lack of a more appropriate analogy if Rickie Lee is a flowering meadow, Brittany Spears is an astro turffed stadium floor.

If I hadn't been taken by her appearance her music would have still captured my imagination. Not that I'm listening particularly closely, but I haven't heard anything in a long time that is as original or crafted as Rickie Lee Jones' compositions. When I first heard them I thought she was as new and fresh and brave as she apparently thought herself to be at the time, but then times change.

The cover art above is a rerelease. Rickie Lee dropped out of the music scene and public eye. At the time the story was she was raising her daughter, but in later interviews she implies there was another reason. When she returned to composing and performing the Magazine cover was changed and I've never been able to find that cover art again.

I spent all morning looking for this article. Ricki Lee Jones has changed along with the rest of the world, and I'm not sure I think that either has changed for the better. What was once fresh, brave and new, she now describes as desperate and lonely. I'm not an advocate of drug addiction, or heroine use of any kind, yet I can't help but be sad that she is clearly so saddened and ashamed of things that gave me so much joy and peace.

If there is an upside to her big change its that she clearly is as frustrated by the direction our country has been steered in as I am. Its comforting to read her commentary on American politics, and I'll probably own a copy of "The Evening of my Best Day" in the near future. Frankly, I haven't been excited about one of her albums since "Girl in Her Volcano". The interview ends on an optimistic note. My guess is that I'll never see the old album art again, but I hope her feelings on the future are accurate and that something good is going on.