Female vocalists doing standards albums had become a thing by the ‘90s, but anyone who’d paid attention to Rickie Lee Jones since her initial emergence shouldn’t have been surprised by Pop Pop. What does make it stand out from, say, Linda Ronstadt’s work with Nelson Riddle or Natalie Cole’s tribute to her own father was her approach. On most of the tracks she’s accompanied by Robben Ford on a nylon string guitar, with subtle standup bass from either Charlie Haden or John Leftwich. A bandoneon appears, as does an occasional sax, but for the most part it’s all very quiet. Her renditions of warhorses like “My One And Only Love” and “Bye Bye Blackbird” are nice and not at all blasphemous. “The Second Time Around” has the softest violin solo we’ve ever heard. However, “Dat Dere” is already based on baby talk, so we don’t need the sound of cooing infants in the mix. (“I Won’t Grow Up” is more effective in the overall context.) So when she springs Hendrix’s “Up From The Skies” on us, it fits right in. Producer David Was—the other guy in Was (Not Was) that’s not Don Was—gets extra royalties by contributing “Love Junkyard”, which is the loudest the album gets, with the most players, and the closest to her own classic sound. Jefferson Airplane’s “Comin’ Back To Me”, taken even more delicately than the original, provides a truly haunting finale.
Rickie Lee Jones Pop Pop (1991)—3
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