Tag: USA

“For her waywardness alone, Rickie Lee Jones deserves a lot of credit,” begins the New York Times‘ review of her 1984 release, The Magazine. “The pop record business is still coming to terms with self-directed female performers, and it prefers its songwriters – male or female – to be prolific, craftsmanlike and fond of the basic four-minute pop song. Ambition translates as the desire to sell more records, and eccentricity is fine as long as it’s confined to a performer’s fashion sense. That can put a strain on a musician like Miss Jones, who is determined to add some poetry to the standard-form pop song, then melt the whole thing down.”

Her #4 hit single “Chuck E’s In Love” (1979) was featured on her eponymous million-selling debut album. It seemed she could pivot in almost any direction after that release found her “evoking jazz singers, girl groups, and the strong influence of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro. Miss Jones clearly knew American music from Bessie Smith to Leonard Bernstein to Bruce Springsteen, and she could sing just about anything … masking control with girlish playfulness.”

That playfulness was still in full evidence on her 1984 single “It Must Be Love.” In G major overall, at the beginning of the verses the I chord is actually Gsus2; it’s only the vocal line that defines the major third. While there is no modulation per se, the tune jumps the tracks abruptly at 1:28, when a Bmin7 –> E major pair is stated and then repeated before returning to G major at 1:37. At 1:48, a sustained instrumental interlude features suspended chords as the groove moves to the back burner. This kind of subtlety cemented Jones’ status as singular songwriter and performer.