Since her 1979 emergence, Rickie Lee Jones has always whipped a myriad of influences into her own musical blender. Now she's turning the tables. Her next album (tentatively titled It's Like This, due in September on Artemis Records) is all covers, paying tribute to Marvin Gaye ("Trouble Man"), Steely Dan ("Show Biz Kids"), Traffic ("The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"), the Beatles ("For No One") and Broadway ("One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story and "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady), among others. This is a far cry from her last effort, 1997 wildly experimental Ghostyhead, which was bounced between two record labels and is now out of print. Jones, who now lives in Tacoma, Wash., is greasing the skids with an appearance at the opening of the Experience Music Project in Seattle, the $240 million rock & roll museum named in honor of Jimi Hendrix's famed band.

What did Jimi Hendrix mean to you?

I have the sense of Jimi as not being like the rest of us, as being super energized, moving differently, fitting in space just a little suspect. I saw him once, and he fit in the air. Like when you're on acid. Except I wasn't on acid. And he moved different. We were truly blessed to have Jimi Hendrix here, I think. I remember his singing was funny. He was not so smooth, so perfect, but something came through him that was profound. Electric Ladyland is the greatest record ever made.

Ghostyhead was your most experimental album; this new one is your most traditional. How did you get from one place to the other?

I think it's a question of picking me up and putting me back together after every album experience, and I always come out a little different. One thing seems to send me in the direction of another.

How did you pick these songs?

There was no apparent sense to this list as far as I can tell. I think the main thing was: Do I sing these well? Do I love to sing these songs? I suppose that is true of every one. I feel very joyful singing.

How did you put your own stamp on these songs?

Well, it's my record, so it's no great feat to put my stamp on each one. It was hard to wrestle "Low Spark" out of Steve Winwood's house, the musical house, in which it has hidden for so many years. I got to that bridge and had to work hard not to sing it like him. Even if I had sung it like him, you know, it's a different recording, a different time, it means a different thing.

When you began, it was thought that a bad original song was worth more than a good cover. When did this change?

I have always seen myself as a singer first; singing comes much easier than writing, and songs other people have written are very much a part of who I am. So I have no problem with the concept in my workplace -- I never did -- though I did realize that it was confusing. People like to see you as simply a singer-songwriter or a singer. I think that came out of that Bob Dylan thing. Are you a spokesman or are you just a dime singer? Are you the New Generation, or are you the old? And I think that resonated for a long time. But I can do a Donovan song, my song, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, some obscure pop hit and end with "Coolsville," and somehow I can make that work, because, goddamn, I mean it. In my head, in my world, they all are one language, and they speak to me with joy and sorrow and hope, and these are the things that matter.

What happened with Ghostyhead?

[Original label] Reprise just wasn't interested in artist development, which I guess is the task they conjured when they thought about how to bring Ghostyhead out. They could not be bothered -- if people thought they weren't gonna like it, why try to change their minds? So then it went to Mercury, where it was driven back like an angry dragon into the caves of paper work and mean-spirited legal mindedness and kept for ransom in order for me to get out of my contract. Notice though, they did not put it out. It was the only record I have ever made that was unavailable -- and it was my most recent. That was hard. So they kept it and did not release it as if to punish me for having been at that label when it was taken over by the organization that is taking over the world. They won't give it back. On the public level, I just don't know. It was not anti-music, it was quite musical, and every time I hear it I shake my head in appreciation.

What's next for you?

What's next is a lot of sleeping since my daughter just finished school and we don't have to get up at seven.

CHARLES BERMANT
(July 23, 2000)