It’s tough to approach religion and everyday thought on such an emotional first-person perspective as Rickie Lee Jones does on her last album, but she does just that.  She gets up in into the works as if she is the gear that turns the world.  The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard is a high-powered original work that elevates Rickie Lee Jones to greater musical heights than she has touched upon before.  Previously, her music carried jazz along with it like a flag flown.  But this album reaches into the mysteries of music touched so infrequently that it is a revelation of artistry.

Like Patti Smith before her, the raw elements of thought and music converge to create a classic, even if that classic might take years to illuminate brightly.  The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard is a reemergence of soul and spirit, a priceless energy that cannot be harvested except by the able.  Rickie Lee Jones is a harvester of her own making as she sings each song with conviction and power.  She explores the deepest humanity with her point of view, humanizing that which many will not, and many more cannot.

Let me recommend “Falling Up” as a starting point for you.  YouTube the video, watch it, and go from there.  From the Patti Smith thunder of “Nobody Knows My Name,” to the Melanie (Safka) inspired folkiness of “Where I Like It Best,” to the Pop of “Circle in the Sand,”  and every other track on this album, Rickie Lee Jones has upped her own ante.

Yes, the album is somewhat unconventional but that separates it from the chaff.  The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard was released in 2006 and yet the flame of it still burns.