In 1997, the brilliant singer and songwriter Rickie Lee Jones released "Ghostyhead", which turned out to be one of the best albums of the year. Incorporating sampling and mixing effects that one would never expect from an artist of her generation, Jones created a unique amalgam of folk-pop and hip-hop--a truly integrated record. By turns haunting, haunted, and hopeful, Jones's new sound was revelatory…fans that come to see Jones at Joe's Pub this weekend should get a chance to hear her perform from an underrated work of pure genius.

The New Yorker Magazine, October 1999

"You like watching the process, right?" said Rickie Lee Jones in a teasing tone near the end of the late show Friday.

The singer-songwriter was in the middle of working out a new tune with the bassist Paul Nowinski, an accompanist so new that she had mispronounced his name earlier in the set. Their casual collaboration might have unnerved other audiences, but fans of Ms. Jones have learned to treasure watching her utterances unfold.

Ms. Jones grabbed the throne of Bohemia in 1979 with her Grammy-winning self-titled debut album with songs that spun out like stories improvised over one too many gimlets. But those hipster confessions were more complicated than they seemed. Grounded in jazz, copping its wit from jump blues, the music Ms. Jones made transformed the American musical canon into her private theater and hiding place.

Playing guitar and piano, Ms. Jones casually surveyed the ground she has traveled in her career, from standards to experimental rock to the shaggy dog tales that charmed her fans early on.

She also sang several of her most beloved tunes, including "Easy Money", "The Magazine", and "Coolsville". Growling or keening, waxing seductive or tragic, Ms. Jones approached singing as a way to reveal the way thoughts form at the root, an expression far more ingrained than speech.

Ms. Jones's voice has only grown more confident since her early days. Her gift to her audience was the chance to accompany her as she purposefully wandered through an artistic landscape whose brilliant corners she continues to claim.

Playing in the intimate confines of Joe's Pub in New York City on Friday (Oct. 16)(the second of five sell-out shows across three days), Rickie Lee Jones filled her second set of the evening with surprises. Half the 16 songs she sang were covers, and Jones, switching from guitar to piano or just singing (sometimes accompanied by upright bassist Paul Nowinski), clearly relished the opportunity to get under the skin of time-tested classics in relaxed circumstances.

She opened with Alan Jay Lerner's "On the Street Where You Live" and the Rodgers & Hart chestnut "My Funny Valentine." Casual in black slacks and an untucked white shirt, Jones was accompanied only by bass, and the spare support allowed her to phrase freely and twist time. The desolation of the evening's most modern (30 years old) cover, Neil Young's "The Old Laughing Lady," fit into her style. Jones admitted, "It doesn't exactly sound like that on the record," then drew laughs demonstrating the pseudo-Indian chant bridge added by producer Jack Nietzsche. The gently bittersweet Donovan tune "Catch the Wind" was delivered more seriously.

"Weasel & the White Boys Cool" brought another example of Jones' easy-going attitude when, during the instrumental break, she told the audience, "You all have to play your own solo in your head." Another frequently programmed original, "Altar Boy," was followed by a lengthy story explaining the genesis of one of its lines. Meandering through her experience living in a cave with hippies in Big Sur at age 14, hitchhiking to Ontario, and more, in captivating detail, suggested one possible style for the spoken word album she's working on. Other old standbys included "Easy Money," "Last Chance Texaco," "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963," "Coolsville" (all from her debut), "The Magazine," "Living It Up" and "Stewart's Coat," along with the recent "Ghostyhead."

The evening closed with four more covers. Charlie Chaplin's evergreen "Smile" (a hit for Nat "King" Cole) captured the mood with its opening line -- "Smile though your heart is aching." Though she hadn't finished learning it, and was peeking at the sheet music, Jones delivered a nicely winsome reading. She then applied her sly wit and supple phrasing to George & Ira Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So," throwing in a quote from Oscar Brown, Jr.'s lyric to Bobby Timmons' jazz standard "Dat Dere."

Long, loud, and heartfelt applause brought the duo back for an encore. Jones scatted a solo on "Bye Bye Blackbird" (Ray Henderson, Mort Dixon), at first jokingly and then getting into it. After some chord-change consultation with Nowinski that included her instruction, "We'll just stop playing when we come to the bridge," Jones remarked to the crowd, "You like watching the process, right?" She then muttered, "I'll strum along when I can" before launching into a touching rendition of a song most famously sung by Frank Sinatra, Gayle Caldwell's "Cycles." It was far from note-perfect, but its sentiments -- "So I'm down, so I'm out / So are many others" -- summed up well.