CD Details
- Number of Discs: 2
- Released: February 6, 2007
- Label: New West Records
Entertainment Reviews:
Entertainment Weekly - p.p.75
"[E]nriched by roadhouse rhythms and her distinctive whiskey-soaked voice....It's still vintage Rickie..." --
Grade: BQ - p.112
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he eight-minute 'I Was There' showcases her still extraordinary space-pixie vocal chops. Boldly different."
Uncut - p.98
4 stars out of 5 -- "SERMON's musical crudeness gives it a powerful immediacy. Strangely accessible and highly addictive, it's her best work in three decades."
No Depression - p.119
"Jones' new songs are quite literally private prayers. It takes the coalescence of her still astonishingly expressive voice and a sympathetic, locked-tight band to transform those confessions."
Mojo (Publisher) - p.104
4 stars out of 5 -- "At times primordial, hallucinatory and sweetly self-examining..."
Tracks:
- 1.Nobody Knows My Name
- 2.Gethsemane
- 3.Falling Up
- 4.Lamp of the Body
- 5.It Hurts
- 6.Where I Like It Best
- 7.Tried to Be a Man
- 8.Circle in the Sand
- 9.Donkey Ride
- 10.7th Day
- 11.Elvis Cadillac
- 12.Road to Emmaus
- 13.I Was There
Product Description:
Personnel: Rickie Lee Jones (vocals, guitar, dulcimer, keyboards, Moog synthesizer, xylophone, bass guitar, percussion); Peter Atanasoff (guitar, oud, background vocals); Bernie Larsen (guitar, drums); Pete Thomas , Rob Schnapf (acoustic guitar); Joey Maramba (bass guitar); Jay Bellerose (drums); Lee Cantelon (background vocals).
After several albums of jazz and pop songbook standards, neo-beatnik hipster songstress Rickie Lee Jones released THE SERMON ON EXPOSITION BOULEVARD, one of the most inspired and well-crafted albums of her career. Reportedly based on the gospels of Christ, this album shouldn't be mistaken for Jones's born-again coming-out party. While the biblical references are numerous and not always subtle ("Donkey Ride"), the lyrical abstractions position the album as more about finding a peaceful self than about finding Jesus.
Musically, the album is varied yet cohesive. The listener is reminded of Jones's long-standing relationship with Tom Waits on the gritty "Tried to Be a Man," replete with a Waits-inspired raspy vocal. The most obvious reference point here, however, is the late-1990s and early-'00s albums of Lucinda Williams. This is "adult" music with a "contemporary," slightly "alternative" studio sheen, but it's far too impassioned on the one hand ("Lamp of the Body") and righteously swinging on the other ("Circle in the Sand"), to ever warrant a tag as bland and limiting as one encompassing those dreaded terms.
Based on 
![Look Hear? [UK Bonus Tracks]](http://d3dvedx3sqrauf.cloudfront.net/i/boxart/mid/90/5013929045323.jpg "Look Hear? [UK Bonus Tracks]")
