Rickie Lee Jones

Rickie displays the fierceness of a majestic Joshua tree and the tender beauty of an orchid. One gets the feeling that she could just as easily slash you with that switchblade that glints in her song, We Belong Together, as disarm you with the song’s aching despair. Though her physical appearance has been appropriately weathered by age, like so many of her fans, her infectious smile lit up the theater all on it’s own. She juxtaposed bawdy humor with self-deprecating wit and honesty. Though her voice lacks the full range and fluidity of her youth, she compensates by adjusting both tempo and phrasing of her songs, highlighting the poetic richness of her lyrics and the emotional power of her melodies. Sadly, she has been cast to the sidelines of popular culture, that same culture that has infected artistic institutions such as the Rock-n-Roll HoF, which had the audacity to induct Cindy Lauper this year while once again snubbing RLJ. If the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts ever considered bestowing its honor to Rickie in the past, the chances that it could happen in the future are greatly diminished now that our current President has commandeered its board. Fans of the breathtaking music of RLJ know that she has been hurt by this callous treatment by so many of her so-called artistic peers. Her fans also know unequivocally that she is representative of the finest artistic expression in music that our great nation has produced. She is a diamond roughened by a chaotic, hardscrabble childhood and a reckless, self-indulgent young-adulthood, but Rickie Lee Jones is a diamond nonetheless!