Rickie Lee Jones - Balm In Gilead

Reassuringly familiar and expertly crafted

On her last album, 2007’s The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard, Jones applied her warm jazzy drawl to a series of largely improvised songs based on Biblical texts. It was a bold and triumphantly successful experiment, especially from a singer well into her 50s, and who could have been forgiven for taking things easy and sticking to less adventurous consolidations of her earlier work.

Balm In Gilead seems unconcerned with such radical envelope-pushing but, though the musical approach is a return to the country, soul and jazz of the records that established Jones as one of the finest voices of her times, it’s brimming with ideas and incident. The Moon Is Made Of Gold flickers with Billie Holiday torch, ambient motifs abound on His Jeweled Floor, while Wildgirl is a gorgeous paean to vulnerable womanhood, written for her own daughter’s 21st birthday.

The list of guest stars impresses, with Alison Krauss, Victoria Williams and Vic Chesnutt all making telling contributions. Ben Harper’s duet on the bluesy Old Enough marks it out as one of Jones’ most alluring and user-friendly songs ever, but it’s Rickie herself that constantly raises the bar: an intuitive performer and a writer of great wisdom and descriptive power.

Fantasy | 0888072317604

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
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