The beret got us in the beginning, but the music has kept us around for years. Rickie Lee Jones, the Grammy-winning singer of "Chuck E.'s in Love," is taking the stage at Largo at the Coronet, and whether or not she's sporting that particular piece of headwear that became associated with her way back when doesn't matter.
What matters is the immense and varied catalog of amazing bluesy, jazz-flavored balladry the singer has produced over the decades. "Chuck E." broke big in 1979, garnering Rickie heaps of critical love and flat-out adoration from fellow greats (famous names regularly sought her out for duets and collaborations). And the critical adulation remained firm through a series of interesting, breaking-new-ground albums in the '80s and 1990s (not many singers can claim to have kept the critics' fancy for the better part of a quarter century, much less a year).
We will hit the back button on the sunny, loosey-cool "Satellites" off of 1991's "Pop Pop" like five times before we've had our fill. What? Everyone listens to the same song over and over again. Now if only we can find time to do some thrifting for a really fantastic, Topanga-circa-1976 felt beret...
Tuesday, November 11, 8PM
$27.50 advance; $30 door
Largo at the Coronet, 366 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles
