I was driving somewhere last week when this week's selection popped up through my iPhone, which is often used as my car musical device - more so than the radio.
The song is "Woody and Dutch on a Slow Train to Perking" by Rickie Lee Jones. This is from her second - and in my opinion - and best release of her career, Pirates.
After I mentally made my selection, I started to doubt it, but thinking I'd keep with Ms. Jones as the artist. I went through all her albums to see what would be more palatable to you, the reader.
...and it's not that I don't care about you, the reader, but then I figured, well, it is MY blog and then I figured that no matter what RLJ song I pick, someone is bound to like it or not, so it really didn't matter if I picked "Danny's All-Star Joint" or "Coolsville" or her excellent cover of Traffic's "the Low Spark of High Heeled Boys". You almost got the title track of Pirates or a much more radio-friendly, accessible "The Real End".
I would venture to guess many don't know Rickie Lee Jones past her one 1979 hit, "Chuck E's in Love", which is still a great song (though for years I could not stand to listen to it for it being overplayed), but she is so much more than that. Jones has rarely, if ever, attempted the same type of album twice, and never twice in a row.
Pirates, her follow up to her debut, consisted of fewer songs, but longer ones, some pushing the eight and nine minute range - which is death for artists trying to get on the radio, but more so for record executives trying to sell an artist who already had one huge pop hit.
"Woody and Dutch" have pop elements, but it has a strong line of jazz running through it as well. Cool, beatnik jazz - not Dixieland, not Dizzy Gillespie or Thelonius Monk jazz either. It has more of an underlying Tom Waits feel to it, but without all the gruffness.
Coming in at a little over five minutes in length, it seems longer, but sometimes not long enough (that's what she said!), but it really encapsulates, for me, what I believe to be the essences of Rickie Lee Jones, though my perception could be way way off.
So even though I went back and forth on which RLJ song to choose, I kept coming back to my original selection and I think it's the wise one. Some of the others you might have heard, but I'd venture to say this is one you have not - and what's life without a little adventure.....even if it's a musical one.
(FYI - it takes about 10 seconds before there is any noise on the song and about 45 seconds before the music actually starts, but hang with it.)
1 comment:
Finally had time to listen in. THIS is the song I heard on the radio and no one ID'd it! Thanks for the lead! Off to download it. :D
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