Pennies In A Jar began with an idea: Nikki Jean would travel cross-country, working on songs with collaborators who would top any list of the greatest songwriters of all time. The plan was inspired, but also wild and improbable. Who could imagine that an artist whose link to the modern world of commercial pop music was appearing on records by Lupe Fiasco, who was still in her early 20s and had no solo recordings on her resume, would reach out to songwriters such as Jimmy Webb, Carole King, Lamont Dozier, Burt Bacharach, Bob Dylan, and ask them to collaborate, and that so many of them would open their doors? That she could spend weeks in Nashville writing with members of the Country Music Songwriters Hall of Fame like Bobby Braddock, go to Martha's Vineyard to write with Carly Simon, recapture the sound of Philly Soul with Thom Bell? Get Brill Building writers Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Jeff Barry, all now relocated in Los Angeles, to write with her the way they used to write in the cubicles of Aldon Music? It was hard not to get swept up in her enthusiasm, and at the same time, wondering if she'd be able to pull this off.

Jimmy Webb, who almost never collaborates, said he would. Burt Bacharach sent Nikki melodies for verses and chorus, and waited for a lyric before sending her the bridge: he wanted to be sure. Mann & Weil welcomed her into their home. Dylan sent her an unfinished song from the Shot of Love era, and invited her to complete it. She got to write with Luigi Creatore, whose roots go back to the '50s with Sam Cooke, and who wrote for Elvis.

Ultimately, maybe fifty songs were written for this album. What you hear is a compact history of pop: the girl group sound, Motown, the sophisticated melodies of Bacharach and Webb, a place where country literally meets hip-hop, the art of the singer-songwriter. All tied together by Nikki Jean's warmth, her joy in making this music, her gift to be able to change shape and still stay herself. The challenge for her, and for her producer Sam Hollander, was to take all these influences, all this geographical and musical range, and make it flow. To point, in each individual track, to the place it sprang from, and have it fit with the songs surrounding it. To sound, always, like Nikki. They've accomplished this beautifully, and anybody who cares about real songs, and who loves discovering something new, and who is dazzled by the names on the songwriting credits alongside Nikki's, needs to listen.