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Stocki reviews Sermons On Exposition Boulevard and finds Rickie Lee Jones bumping into Jesus in Coolsville... it is fascinating stuff...

Rickie Lee Jones and Jesus; it was not a combination I was expecting. When I heard the title Sermons On Exposition Boulevard it sounded so much like a Presbyterian preachers’ Conference that I could not wait to see what was going on. It seems that having been brought in as a voice in a project her friend (and producer here) Lee Cantelon was doing on bringing the words of Jesus into a modern context, Jones got the muse and started muttering streams of consciousness songs on a similar theme into the mic. A whole new project was born and, though in no way claiming any born again experience or Christian confession, what we are delivered is an album of spiritual pondering that is fascinating in soundscape and content. 

To the music first; Jones has never been one to keep the same old formula when it comes to recording albums. In recent times she has recorded the trippy hip-hop influenced "Ghostyhead," a covers album set in jazz "It’s Like This" and an acoustic reinterpretation of her most popular songs on "Naked.Songs." On "Sermons…" we get a whole other musical trip in Jones’s journey. To get into the space think Patti Smith, Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Tom Waits and Van Morrison. It is loose, raw and improvised. It allows Jones to scream and whisper. "Falling Up" and "Circle In the Sand" are more accessible than most of the lo-fi meanderings. "It Hurts" has the painful scream and is followed by the quiet meditative "Where I Like It Best."

The content? Well, "Gethsemane" is a tender look into the anguish of Christ before his cross, finding himself alone, his Father not giving him miraculous escape and just needing a moment of rest and a hand to hold before the cross that finds its place on "Donkey Ride" where “you’ll be coming into town on a donkey tonight/but you’ll be going out on a cross.” "Lamp of the Body" seems to expound John 1 where John The Baptizer comes as a light but “now one has come” who brings a greater light and “if you walk by night/you will fall.” Falling Up takes the form of a sinner, probably prostitute girl, probably Mary bumping into Jesus on the street corner, with the rabbis all around him, and discovering that she could have redemption. As she falls in confession she is lifted and transfigured to be like him. "Elvis Cadillac" has us in heaven and "Seventh Day" is about the hope of new birth.

There are no altar calls, no particular dogma being called for allegiance to. Yet, the provocative poetry leads you into spiritual space and gives thoughts to reflect on. "Where I Like It Best" looks at the hypocrisy of prayer, incarnating the Pharisee to satellite TV evangelist and suggesting, as Jesus did, that secret places are the best place to engage with God and that it is not as religious a discipline as we have been made to think and encourages a much more natural reaching for the Divine by the ordinary people. Without doubt it has a swipe at the religious right and their bombast of arrogance but it should be seen as a judgement on the wrongs of the prayers of others as much as an encouragement to pray in your own soul. Another use of Gospel moments in order to question modern pictures of Jesus is in the last verse of the closing song when Rickie Lee asks if we are understanding Jesus at all, “cuz you been traveling in many universes and you manifest here/It’s been difficult to see who you are/ Brother, I didn’t realize that you were talking to me/Until you broke that bread and I saw that you were/Where have you been that you don’t know what’s been going on here in Jerusalem/ Haven’t you heard/ Haven’t you heard about the Nazerene/ You know we thought you were gonna set Israel free.”  

This is deeply spiritual stuff but meanders into the ether and is more abstract than doctrinal. Jesus finds himself in local Californian bars and hanging out in heaven with Elvis and Janis Joplin. It earths him which was Cantelon’s original mission. It also rips him from the bosom of the political and religious right. This is no Contemporary Christian Music. It appears from out on the fringes. It will not be at all appealing to the theological squeamish. It might be hard work for those who like their music slick and smooth. It is one artist’s rumination. It is intriguing. It is fascinating. It brings the best out of Jones and should be commended for its artistic and spiritual ambition.

Steve Stockman 

Steve Stockman is the Presbyterian Chaplain at Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, where he lives in community with 88 students. He has written two books Walk On; The Spiritual Journey of U2 which he is currently updating and The Rock Cries Out; Discovering Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music. He dabbles in poetry and songwriting and he has a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster (listen anytime of day or night @ www.bbc.co.uk/ni/religion/rhythmandsoul). He has his own web page--Rhythms of Redemption at http://stocki.ni.org . He also tries to spend some time with his wife Janice and daughters Caitlin and Jasmine.