Should we be listening to this? I mean, look outside for a minute; it’s dark, dingy, seasonably cold. What’s Rickie Lee Jones up to asking us to imagine that we’re sinking into a balmy mid-summer haze? Throughout The Evening… (her first album in six years) the much-loved gin-urchin serenades us with diaphanous string arrangements and choruses that are as light as pollen. Her voice meanwhile, (still that beguiling mixture of doe-eyed ingénue and seen-it-all shipwreck) slips effortlessly mid-song between Hangover Square and Sesame Street.
On first encounter you’ll be convinced that nothing this delicate can survive the current hostile climate.
But persevere. Rickie, remember, spent her younger years roaring with Tom Waits – she’s made of stern stuff. And beneath the drum brushes, muted horns and tastefully jazzy backings, there is some tough and unflinching business going on. Take ‘Ugly Man’ and ‘Tell Somebody (Repeal The Patriot Act)’ – on the surface a pair of shuffling, mildly diverting tunes that suddenly, after one or two listens, reveal themselves to be vitriolic anti-Bush diatribes. Or ‘A Tree On Allenford’, a haunting, unsettling ballad full of cryptic, lyrical intimations of child abuse.
This is an album that pays handsomely on close examination. It won’t go banging any doors for attention (the only exception being the lascivious Lucinda Williams blues of ‘Mink Coat At The Bus Stop’) but allow its warm breeze to blow over you for a time and you’ll find it impossible to ignore.