The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard
Rickie Lee Jones has seen interest in her work reigniting in recent years, following a long period out of the public eye after her initial explosion onto the music scene in 1979.
Her 2007 release The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard is facinating and creative. While still retaining her jazzy vocal style, this album covers many more bases, veering from rocking punky pop to improvisational epics. Rickie Lee seems to have finally come to terms with what she is, and her new label New West appear to have afforded her the luxury of allowing her creative forces to be unleashed.
Originally conceived as a lo-fi, low budget project, a spoken word interpretation of Christ's teachings with guitar backing akin to The Velvet Underground was the plan, but the album developed into a full scale sonically-rich collection of songs with a loose thread of putting Christ's words into a modern-day context, and portraying those words in a way that anyone can understand.
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