Music Review: Rickie Lee Jones - The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard

There's always been something a bit ethereal about Rickie Lee Jones. In a career spanning nearly thirty years, her music has, by and large, maintained an airy, jazzy quality that spoke of a street level freedom. Bubbling beneath the surface, though, there was an underlying hint of restlessness, of a spirit seeking new vistas. Unfortunately, much of that spirit was stifled in pop-driven albums that rarely showcased her strengths. The pop machinery was quite content with the bohemian pop star they'd created, and she was perhaps too beset with personal demons to completely break free of that image.

The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard finds Jones with a new label (New West) and a new sense of conviction. Her first album of original material since 2003's ambitious but hollow The Evening of My Best Days, this latest release is a testament to the power of the spirit. What began as a project to interpret Lee Cantelon's book The Words as a spoken word record was transformed into something more universal once Jones was brought on board. Cantelon's original idea was simple enough — to put the words of Jesus Christ into a modern context outside the conventions of contemporary organized religion and lay those words over a bed of music.

The project immediately shifted gears when Jones came in to lay down her vocals. Instead of reciting the text before her, she improvised, beat-fashion, a stream of consciousness lyric that would become "I Was There." It's a haunting piece, with only Jones and her guitar summing up the underlying theme of the album — that the original message of Jesus has been lost in the wrangling of organized religion. "Where have you been that you don't know what's going on here in Jerusalem?" she asks a manifestation. "Haven't you heard about the Nazarene? You know, we thought we were gonna set Israel free." It closes the album on a note of quiet irony, pondering how the message of Christ got lost through the generations.

Don't expect Sermon to be a chart-topper among the Christian Right, though. And don't think of it as a born again pop collection. If anything, this is a work that takes Christianity away from the bloated pulpits of politics and wealth, and returns it to the streets from whence it sprang. The Jesus here is the universal spirit of man, more apt to turn up in a seedy Culver City bar than a megachurch. If there's a theme to this album, it's the importance of spirituality, not religion. It's no surprise then, that "Elvis Cadillac" finds Elvis, Janis Joplin at his side, cruising heaven in the King's vehicle of choice.

Article Author: Ray Ellis

Ray Ellis is a freelance writer who has been dissecting pop culture and its effect on how we view ourselves for over twenty years, ruffling feathers and dragging unsuspecting pedestrians along for the ride whenever possible.

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