Rickie Lee Jones
Balm in Gilead
Fantasy. 10 Tracks.
Rating: 3½ stars (out of 5)

2009 marks the 30^th anniversary of Rickie Lee Jones’ self-titled debut album. It’s a weighty milestone when you think about it. That debut, stocked with boss tracks such as “Coolsville,” “Danny’s All-Star Joint” and her lone Top 10 hit, “Chuck E’s in Love,” clearly defined Jones’ unique jazz-pop vision and hinted at momentous things to come.  Indeed, that vision has filtered down to a new generation of hipster warblers, including Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux and Corrine Bailey Rae, whose “Put Your Records On” in particular sounds like it was plucked straight from the R.L.J. catalogue.

Yet Jones herself never again reached the commercial highs of that first outing, and after her well-received 1981 follow-up, Pirates, many critics lost interest as well. In recent years she’s flown well below the radar, reappearing now and then after prolonged intervals with modest works that garner scant notice.

Balm In Gilead, released in early November, may not be the full-force comeback Jones deserves, but it does remind us why she was such a big deal all those years ago. The lovely opening track, “Wild Girl,” is a true throwback: Jones started writing it 20 years ago and finished only recently.  (She has admitted to suffering from occasional bouts of writer’s block.) Penned as an ode to her daughter, now 21, it’s also a bittersweet reflection on the path the artist’s life has taken. Jones gripes “it’s hard to be older and poor, I don’t dig it that much anymore,” yet in the end she realizes it’s all been worth it because she “got to raise Charlotte.”

A wistful tone meanders through the rest of the album. “Old Enough,” a tender duet with Ben Harper, finds a couple on the brink of a break-up, wondering where it all went wrong. “Something’s changed,” Harper confesses, and Jones counters “I’d turn the clock but how can I?”  Similarly, “Bonfires” casts a misty eye towards a relationship on the rocks and a lover’s attempt to leave past hurts behind. (“If there’s a sun, I’ll watch it rise/To dry the tears out of my eyes.”) Noted producer Jon Brion contributes delicate harmonica work to this track; others boast guest appearances by Alison Krauss, Vic Chesnutt and Victoria Williams.

Content in the past to chronicle the insular lives of bohemians, Jones has allowed politics into her writing of late. On her 2003 album, The Evening of My Best Day, she took aim at the perceived shortcomings of the Bush administration, but here she strikes a cautiously hopeful stance. “The Gospel of Carlos, Norman and Smith” refers to the controversial athletes who raised their fists to Black Power at the 1968 Olympics, but it also seemingly salutes Obama. “When hope is the color of a man,” Jones sings over soulful church-organ accompaniment, “the color of love is the color that can stand for something.”

With just 10 songs, and one an instrumental throwaway (“The Blue Ghazel”), Balm In Gilead  feels less substantial than Jones’ best work.  Also, it’s a bit loose stylistically.  “Remember Me” is a country waltz worthy of Emmylou Harris, “His Jeweled Floor” moves at the funereal pace of a hymn, and “The Moon Is Made Of Gold,” written by Jones’ father, ambles amiably down Tin Pan Alley with a jaunty whistle. Holding these disparate strands together are Jones’ ever-lustrous voice, still paradoxically childlike and worldly wise, and a back-porch production blissfully at odds with today’s robotic electro-pop fodder.  If you’re tired of having your ears assaulted by Auto-Tune, Balm is the cure for what ails ya.