November 8, 1954– Rickie Lee Jones
The first time I noticed her was an appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1979. Rickie Lee Jones has challenged my listening pleasure with an absorbing musical vision that defies classification. She doesn’t fit the moniker of singer/songwriter as she refused the careful eloquence of the Folk-Rock generation of Joni Mitchell & Carly Simon that came right before her. She isn’t Punk or Pop, she skirts around the edges of Jazz, Motown, Traditional R&B. If she must have a label, let’s call her style Beatnik Cabaret. Her sense of humor, musical dexterity & songwriting skills still engage me after all these years.
Jones was born Chicago. Her grandparents were the working vaudevillians “Peg Leg” Jones & Myrtle Lee. They had a musical comedy act with singing, dancing & jokes. Jones’s father was a singer, songwriter, painter, & trumpet player, who worked as a waiter. Her family moved to Arizona when Jones was 5 years old, & the western landscape provided imagery for many of her songs including Last Chance Texaco, Flying Cowboys, The Horses.
Jones:
“My first records were made for people my age. Neither young, nor old, we fall in between. I love all sorts of music, I’ve experienced life. I’m getting along & I pay my rent. I think my life is like everybody else’s. We’re older now. & it’s not all about me, or all about us. It’s about our kids, and our parents who are dying, & the things that are relevant to us at this age. I really wanted to talk to us. To my generation, music is the balm that keeps us going.”
Jones’s self-titled debut album had an immediate & profound impact on me, & really on the music culture of the late 1970s. It was a multi-million selling hit, with a successful world tour & with Jones on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Jones received 5 Grammy Award nominations in 1975: Record Of The Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance Female, Best Rock Vocal Performance Female, Song Of The Year for Chuck E’s In Love, & Best New Artist, which she won.
Her next release Pirates (1980) pushed the idea of female singer/songwriter & received positively radiant reviews, including a rare 5 Stars from Rolling Stone who put her on their cover again & dubbed her: The Countess Of Coolsville. It is included in Tom Moon’s must-have book: 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die (2008).
My favorite Jones album is her third release, an EP, Girl At Her Volcano (1983), a cunning collection of jazz & pop standards which includes what may be the definitive version of Rodgers & Hart‘s My Funny Valentine. I have it on cassette, remember that format? Previously hard to find, I just discovered that it is available now on iTunes.
I often return to listen to Pop Pop (1991), an Argentinean flavored jazz & blues standards record.
In 1988 she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal for her rendition of Autumn Leaves from Jazz bassist Rob Wasserman’s Duets album. The next year her duet with Dr. John of Making Whoopee, won a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance.
Back in 2000, I was digging It’s Like This, a collection of fearlessly chosen cover songs including Steely Dan’s Show Biz Kids, Steve Winwood’s Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Charlie Chaplin’s Smile, The Beatles’ For No One & Leonard Bernstein’s & Stephen Sondheim’s One Hand, One Heart. Jones received her 8th Grammy nomination for this one.
The Devil You Know (2012), a collection of Rock song covers produced by Ben Harper, it is the only Jones album that I did not buy a hard copy on CD, opting to download just a few selected tracks. I feel bad about that now.
I did download her latest, The Other Side Of Desire (2015). It is a very groovy album, Jones’ first of all original material since 2003 & the first on her own label. It was fan funded, which is a real comment on the state of the music biz, when an artist of Jones immense gifts has to start up her own record company & dig for funding just to get her songs out there. The track, Juliette, is a love song to her pit bull rescue. I love her for that. In the liner notes, Jones writes:
“I am happy with the loss of prestige. That’s a powerful thing, to go from where I was when I started, not only me, but my whole generation, to people not knowing who I am. It’s not that I don’t want money. I really would like some money! But if I start doing it for money, it always ends up going awry. That’s my journey. It’s not Beyoncé‘s, it’s not somebody else’s, it is mine. & I have to follow that. I have to know it, memorize it, sing it every day.”
Jones adopted New Orleans as her home last year & has a cabin outside Olympia, Washington. She has a fun website Furniture For The People that takes on the issues of Jones’ music projects, gardening, social activism, & liberal politics. Jones:
“My first 10 years were totally in fear on stage. Fear of being rejected, of seeing that perhaps I’m not really worthy of being there. Of them not liking me, & sending me home. Of me making a mistake. Then I decided to go on stage by myself. Up until then it always had to be in a band. & to do these pop songs alone, was so naked. & a kind of reversal happened. I realized, They’ve come to be loved. They want to be safe & healed for the 2 hours that they’re listening to me.”
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