I have been in love with Rickie Lee Jones since I was twelve.
It was summer. I was a "fresh-off-the-boat" jíbaro immigrant kid lost in New York City. For some reason that I can't recall (I reckon my mom must have had an interview or a meeting or something), I was under the care and charge of one of my uncles that day. Tio Maelo's idea of 'babysitting' was to take me along with him to one of his favorite pool halls in Spanish Harlem. It was still early afternoon, so when we got there, the place was empty except for a handful of barflies, Tio Maelo's friends. Maelo handed me a roll of quarters and left me alone to play pool on one of the tables in the place while he drank and cavorted with his friends, talking about whatever it is that Puerto Rican drinking buddies talked about back in those days. Probably women and boxing or the Yankees, is my guess.
Near the pool table, facing it, there was an enormous jukebox, one of those old ones that played 45 RPM singles. This was the perfect way to drown out all the Boricua bravado and drinking coming from the direction of the bar. I was a twelve year old kid with a pool table, a jukebox, and a roll of quarters at my disposal. I was in heaven. So I got to it.
Though I'd always loved music and jukeboxes, something happened that day to my not-yet-adolescent brain that had never happened before. I don't recall how many songs I listened to before I finally stumbled onto a Rickie Lee Jones record, but once I did, I just kept playing that one 45, over and over again, for the rest of the afternoon (the a-side was "Chuck E's in Love"/ the b-side was "Danny's All Star Joint"), while I played long solitaire games of billiards one after the other. For some reason, the sound and general texture of her voice drew me in. Her music moved me in a way that was deeper than had been my experience with the pop and Latin musics that I had grown up with and was used to hearing before this day. I was entranced. There was something about her music that compelled me to alternate between those two songs again and again. I have no idea all these years later what other songs might have been in that jukebox that fateful day, but I only remember those two tunes.
It was completely serendipitous that I should connect with a work of art as intensely as I did at that age. If it weren't for this musical moment, I probably would have no memory at all of that particular afternoon. Funny how one seemingly random moment in time can affect a whole lifetime's course, though.
That day was one of the milestones which would eventually inspire me to become a musician. There was something bold and sublime and urgent in her phrasing that I took notice of. It caught me off guard. It had qualities that I now appreciate in the great performers of our time. Fearlessness. Recklessness, even. The music of Rickie Lee Jones, like that of other vital artists, is resistant to easy categorization. Equal parts traditionalist and iconoclast, her recordings over the years span a wide gamut of styles and genres ranging from soft ballads to strident walls of sound.
Tio Maelo had little to do with my epiphany, really, other than providing me with the quarters I needed. I never quite developed any kind of close relationship with him; he was not really a central figure in my life before that or since. This was the only personal interaction I remember having with him, in fact, yet I am eternally grateful to him that he took me to the bar that day all these years later. In retrospect, I probably drove those guys in that bar crazy, playing those two songs repeatedly. Oh well. No one complained, so I guess they didn't find it too disagreeable.
I'm writing this because Tio Maelo passed away today.
Rest in peace, Tio. Thank you.
