AND ONE MORE THING: During Rickie Lee...

AND ONE MORE THING: During Rickie Lee Jones’ combination performance-discussion last weekend at Santa Monica College, the mercurial thrush was peppered with questions about what she thinks of other contemporary artists, mostly female. She found little modern greatness to cite.

After Jones named Laura Nyro as her “most important influence, a strange cross between Gershwin and Marvin Gaye,” the audience began shouting out other singers’ names--none of whom, Jones said, “move my heart.”

“There are a number of people who are good intellectually, who are on new ground, like Liz Phair. But she doesn’t penetrate my heart. I sit and listen--’Wow, what a weird (expletive) thing to say!’ I’m amazed, but I’m not moved.”

* “Do I like Madonna? That’s kind of a moot question now.”

* Jane Siberry: “Not for me.”

* Joni Mitchell: “Not for me.”

* How does she feel, one attendee asked, about Sheryl Crow “ripping off your act”? Jones went on and answered another question first, but a minute later felt compelled to come back to this one, standing by her piano, clenching her fists and simply yelling: “Sheryl (expletive) Crow!?!”