Rumble Doll
****

Originally released: 1993
Columbia Records

Elysa Gardner

Patti Scialfa's singing on Rumble Doll brings to mind a certain legendary rock artist – but not the one you think. With its warmly gritty texture and slow pronounced vibrato, Scialfa's voice is at times uncannily reminiscent of Ronnie Spector's. Yet the songs on this debut album by Bruce Springsteen's former backup singer and present wife would have never been recorded back in Spector's heyday, when the female angst addressed in pop music seldom entailed anything more complicated than, say, pining after another girl's guy. "Baby Don't," one of the 12 tracks on Doll, finds its narrator pining after another woman's man, and the difference between that scenario and the previous one involves more than the fact that Scialfa isn't 17 anymore.

It is, in fact, the emotional ambivalence and sexual candor of a mature woman – subjects that were taboo in rock & roll before the seminal work of folks like Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith – that lends power and poignancy to Rumble Doll. Scialfa's confessional songwriting seems especially bold given the highly publicized history of her relationship with Springsteen, which heated up before the rock star had divorced his first wife. "That ring around your finger this time won't hold me back," she warns on "Baby Don't." The enchanting "Come Tomorrow" also seems to allude to personal experience: "From the first time that I saw you/I wanted nothing but to make you mine.... On her finger your wedding band shines/Still you tempt me/With your kisses."

Haunted by a wariness of such temptation and a fear of losing faith and executed with a gentle but resolute grace, the ballads on Rumble Doll do invite comparisons to some of Springsteen's more quietly reflective work. (Bruce's involvement on Doll is limited to playing guitar and keyboards and assisting producer Mike Campbell, of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, on two tracks. Ex-E Street Band members Roy Bittan and Nils Lofgren lend additional support, as do more recent Springsteen cohorts like Gary Mallabar and the late Jeff Porcaro.) "I'm falling down hard from salvation/Come protect this china heart," Scialfa sings on the title track, as guitars shimmer and chime softly behind her. And on "Loves Glory," she pleads, "Oh, baby, tell me stories/About those pretty worlds/Who will deliver us from blame?"

Ultimately, though, Scialfa's songs garner their charm, and their strength, from a perspective that is distinctly feminine and from the insights engendered by her own rigorous introspection. "I was just frightened of ... the price you pay/For every good thing/That ever comes your way," she sings on "Lucky Girl." "I'm going to lay my worries down.... Yeah, I got lucky, baby/Yeah, 'cause I got wise." It's a simple but radiant epiphany, a realization of the link between fortune and fortitude. (RS 665)