Birth of the Coolsville

Rickie Lee Jones - It Must Be Love

We interrupt the Jazz Snob Sausage Fest to bring you a birthday celebration for one of the great ladies.

For today marks the 68th voyage 'round the flaming hydrogen sphere for a truly beloved songstress of our age.

Somewhere between Blossom Dearie and Joni Mitchell, her style has influenced a million imitators but few equals.

She had the good sense to have a global chart-topper on her first record, so the record company could leave her alone from the jump.

Born in 1954, she's 68 today and, as far as I know, still records and tours.

Her albums and concerts are like intimate glimpses into the world of the artist, and she's one of those vocalists blessed with that ineffable quality where each person listening is convinced she is singing directly to them.

Today's share, for instance, is as good an example as any of what she does and how she does it.

Ever since her 1979 advent, when she exploded on the scene like a Jazz-capped ball of cool fire, there's been no one exactly like Rickie Lee Jones.

If the purpose of a live setting is to weave a web of sultry intrigue and bring the audience into that sense of mystery, this is a performer that checks every conceivable box.

Let's time travel back 31 years to the city of Minneapolis, and toss our hats into the air all freeze-framed, for this 102 minutes of magnificence then, shall we?

Rickie Lee Jones

Guthrie Theater

Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

11.11.1991

01 Bye Bye Blackbird

02 The Second Time Around

03 It Must Be Love

04 Last Chance Texaco

05 Satellites

06 Up from the Skies

07 Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

08 Dat Dere

09 I Won't Grow Up

10 I'll Be Seeing You

11 Coolsville

12 We Belong Together

13 Deep Space

14 On Sunday Afternoons In 1963 

15 Bolivia

16 Weasel and the White Boys Cool/band introductions

17 My One and Only Love

18 Love Junkyard

19 Comin' Back to Me

20 Something Cool

Total time: 1:42:34

disc break goes after Track 13

Rickie Lee Jones - vocals, guitars, piano & percussion

Michael O'Neill - guitars & vocals

Sal Bernardi - accordion, guitars, harmonica & vocals

John Leftwich - bass

Keith Fiddmont - saxophones

Ed Mann - percussion & vibraphone

mono DAT straight from the mixing desk, remastered by plaz 

very slightly retracked -- with volume increased throughout & Track 15 identified -- by EN, November 2022
502 MB FLAC/direct link

This was initially remastered by the exceptional plaz a ways back, but I felt it really needed some more volume throughout so I gave it some, using the tasty Audacity Limiter tool that aims to approximate the Sound Forge Wave Hammer tool my version of SF has only as a demo because of a bug.

I'll be back after the weekend with some anniversary goodness from Eastern Europe.

But today is the day to pay tribute to Rickie Lee Jones, the first Mayor of Coolsville!--J.