Sunday, December 6, 2009

Rickie Lee Jones live @ Berklee tonite!

ARE YOU IN THE BOSTON AREA and A RICKIE LEE JONES FAN? She's in concert at the Berklee Performance Center tonight, Sunday, December 6 at 7:00pm. Regularly priced tickets are $33 and $38. (800-745-3000 or http://www.ticketmaster.com/) BUT.. YOU CAN GET HALF PRICE TICKETS (don't make me do the math) if you go in person to Bostix - at their two locations: Faneuil Hall and Copley Square between 11:00am - 4:00pm (must be same day of show). So take that extra money you save and grab a bite to eat before the show and have a great night out!

Rickie Lee Jones has been making the headlines this week!
SPIN Magazine published a Q&A that quoted ‘Twilight’ Star Nikki Reed saying she would like to play Rickie Lee Jones if there is ever a film made about the star.

Who would you like to portray in a rock biopic?
“Rickie Lee Jones. Last year I went to see her at the Largo [in L.A.] on Valentine's Day by myself. She seems eccentric. She started telling stories about her childhood, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe this is the night when she wants to make this a personal experience.’ But it turns out she does that all the time.”

On Monday, Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe in a review of Jones’ new CD "Balm In Gilead" wrote: “this music has healing properties: the beauty of its melodies and the wisdom of its words soothe the soul and remind us what a peculiar treasure Jones is, a fact too easily forgotten in the rush of passing fashions and the wake of the artist’s own pocked path.”

On Tuesday, Rickie Lee performed on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien and O’Brien personally plugged the Boston show.

On Thursday, Ted Drozdowski of The Boston Phoenix reviewed her new CD, writing: “ . . . this beautiful disc needs only her sweet muted-trumpet voice and optimistic viewpoint to sail gracefully through its 10 songs, which range from the ’40s-style guitar chamber jazz of “The Moon Is Made of Gold” to the moaning, feedback-dappled hymn to transcendence that’s “His Jeweled Floor.”

On Friday, Milva DiDomizio of The Boston Globe noted: “Can it really be 30 years since singer-songwriter extraordinaire Rickie Lee Jones burst on the scene with an astonishing self-titled debut record and a top 10 hit? Decades may have passed, but “Chuck E’s In Love’’ is still fresh, and so is Jones.”

In addition she has received RAVE reviews of the new CD from The Los Angeles Times, Paste Magazine, The Guardian, Financial Times and many other publications.

Tonight’s show at Berklee Performance Center and $38 and $33 tickets are available today at half price [$19.00 & $16.50] at Bostix.
It’s a bonanza for those wanting a great show for an amazing deal.

Head down to Bostix today and then to the show is at 7 pm!!!
Bostix is located in the kiosks at Copley Square and at Faneuil Hall
11 AM – 4 PM
An Evening with Rickie Lee Jones
Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of “Chuck E’s In Love”
Sunday, December 6
Berklee Performance Center, 7:00 pm


HT Productions presents “An Evening With Rickie Lee Jones” Sunday, December 6 at 7:00 P.M. at Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston. Tickets at $50 [golden circle], $38 and $33 [including Berklee Performance Center $1.00 restoration fee] are on sale now at the Berklee Performance Center box office, at www.ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling 800-745-3000. For more information, call: 617-747-2261. Berklee Performance Center is wheelchair accessible.

2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the dawn of Jones' storied recording career, which exploded in 1979 with her self-titled debut album and its top 10 hit, “Chuck E.'s in Love.”

Jones had an immediate impact on pop culture, enjoying the massive buzz of an indelible SNL appearance and an instantaneous Rolling Stone cover, all while winning a Grammy® for Best New Artist. Three decades' worth of acclaimed creative detours have ensued with both her singing and writing “voice” remaining, despite her pervasive and incalculable influence on two or three entire generations of singer/songwriters, among the most distinctive and instantly recognizable in music.

November 3, 2009 is also the release date of Jones’ newest CD: "Balm in Gilead," a collection of emotionally powerful, texturally rich and endearing songs, many of which have been 'incubating' with Jones over the last several decades.

"This record is unique because most of it was written over the last 20 years," she says. "All the other records, I've written in a year or two or three after finishing the previous one. This one has threads from many, many years. Some were just written recently, most were finished recently but started a long time ago. 'Wild girl', for example, which ended up being about my daughter, was started before "Flying Cowboys," and it was waiting all these years to finish. For me, the album feels close to a debut, because the only time you ever have to spend all these years writing a song is your first record, right?"

The songs flow easily through its roots and soul fabric; it reflects the lifetime work of a woman, whose very name is a genre. She's joined on the record by Ben Harper, Jon Brion, Vic Chesnutt, Bill Frisell, Victoria Williams and Alison Krauss among other highly talented friends.

While speaking with her friend David Tibet (Television) the two were waxing on the healing properties of the journey of music that she was finishing up. “It is like a balm,” she said, "even when the songs go to the darkest places. The feeling is: if there is a sun, I will watch it rise.” The inherent sorrow that leads to courage is left unspoken. The record is upbeat; the songs are accessible in a way Jones' recent work may not have been to everyone. While certainly each record is very different from the one before, they all share a raw emotion and powerful vocal identity. Jones' voice is better than it has been, maybe than it has ever been.

Jones intricately weaves a thread of disarming vulnerability through "Balm in Gilead"'s exquisite story-songs. The album's charms include the R&B flavored opener “Wild girl” which harkens back to the old Rickie Lee, with a mother's love--older and wiser, "The Gospel of Carlos, Norman and Smith (lololo)" which artfully widens the lens on society's racial injustice and its bottomless human ramifications; “Old Enough” (a duet with Ben Harper) is also classic Rickie Lee Jones, with its irresistible punchy horns that somehow miraculously transform pain to joy and the stunning “The Moon Is Made of Gold,” a star-dusted acoustic jazz gem, written by her father decades ago. The tune, with its gorgeously simple lyric and magical melody will be undoubtedly be covered and sung a hundred years from now. Other highlights include the emotionally raw and heartbreaking "Bonfires," the gorgeous ambient “His Jeweled Floor” on which she plays all the instruments except bass and accordion and the wild-dog howl of “Blue Ghazel.”

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