Rickie Lee Jones

All Music Guide:

Once touted as the natural successor to Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones proved no less idiosyncratic or mercurial; like Mitchell, Jones experienced significant commercial success at the outset of her career, but a restless creative spirit -- combined with a stubborn refusal to fit comfortably into any one musical niche -- sealed her ultimate destiny as that of a highly regarded cult heroine.

Jones was born on November 8, 1954, in Chicago, but the volatile relationship between her mother and father resulted in an upbringing that led her everywhere from Phoenix, Arizona, to Olympia, Washington, where an expulsion ended her school career. As a teen, Jones left home and began drifting up and down the West Coast before settling in Los Angeles in the mid-'70s. There she worked a series of waitressing jobs while occasionally performing in area clubs, where she sang and honed her unique, Beat-influenced spoken word monologues. She also began a relationship with fellow boho Tom Waits.

Her first measure of success was as a songwriter; after her friend Ivan Ulz sang Jones' composition "Easy Money" over the phone to Lowell George, the ex-Little Feat frontman included it on his album Thanks I'll Eat It Here. Then in 1978 Jones' four-song demo came to the attention of Warner Bros. executive Lenny Waronker, who enlisted Russ Titleman to co-produce her self-titled 1979 debut LP. Spurred by the success of the jazz-flavored hit single "Chuck E's in Love," Rickie Lee Jones became a smash both commercially and critically, earning praise for Jones' elastic vocals, vivid wordplay, and unique fusion of folk, jazz, and R&B.

With 1981's follow-up, Pirates, she gave early notice that her music would not sit still; employing longer and more complex song structures, her lyrics tackled themes of evolution, change, and death. Two years later, she returned with Girl at Her Volcano, an EP collection of live jazz standards and studio outtakes; with 1984's The Magazine, she made another left turn, teaming with composer James Newton Howard for her slickest, most synth-driven outing to date.

After taking a few years off from recording, she resurfaced with 1989's sterling Flying Cowboys, produced by Steely Dan's Walter Becker and recorded with the aid of the wonderful Scottish trio the Blue Nile. Don Was took over the production reins for 1991's Pop Pop, on which Jones covered ballads ranging in origin from Tin Pan Alley to the Haight-Ashbury while backed by jazz players including Charlie Haden and Joe Henderson. After 1993's Traffic from Paradise, she embarked on an acoustic tour; Naked Songs, a document of those unplugged shows, followed in 1995. Ghostyhead was released in 1997 and the standards record It's Like This appeared three years later.

She returned to original material in 2003 with The Evening of My Best Day, an album that expressed her anger with contemporary American politics. During the summer of 2005, Rhino released the three-CD anthology Duchess of Coolsville. Two years later, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, a stunning collection of songs based on friend Lee Cantelon's 1997 book The Words, came out. Balm in Gilead followed in 2009. In 2012, Jones returned with the Ben Harper-produced covers album, Devil You Know.

Wikipedia:

Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a career of over three decades, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards. Her songwriting has been characterized as "a blend of bravado and vulnerability [that] wavers on indefinable borders." She is also known for her unique singing style, especially in live performances. One concert reviewer, describing her rendering of "We Belong Together," states she "reached her apex, skating from swells into near screams into breathy whispers, from pointillist staccato scats into brassy, trumpetlike bursts."

In 1999, Jones was listed at #30 in the VH1 list of 100 greatest women of rock.

Biography [edit]

Childhood [edit]

Rickie Lee Jones was born on the north side of Chicago to Bettye and Richard Jones. Her paternal grandfather, Frank 'Peg Leg' Jones, and her grandmother, Myrtle Lee, a dancer, were Vaudevillians based in Chicago, Illinois. A singer/dancer/comedian, Peg Leg Jones' routine consisted of playing the ukulele, singing ballads, and telling stories. Jones's father, one of four children, was a WWII veteran. A singer, songwriter, painter, and trumpet player, her father worked as a waiter. Her mother, Bettye, was raised in orphanages in Ohio with her three brothers until she was old enough to leave. Bettye and Richard met in a drugstore coffee shop. Rickie Lee was the third of four children and was born in Chicago in 1954.

The family moved to Arizona in 1959, and the dry desolation and heavenly skies would provide the emotional landscape and lyrical imagery (Last Chance Texaco, Flying Cowboys) that marks her early music. Childhood in the Jones family was lonely, but her imagination flourished. She grew up riding horses, studying dance, and practicing swimming with her AAU coach before and after school. When she was 10 years old her brother had an accident which changed the direction of her life. The family moved to Olympia, Washington, where her father finally left the family for good. Rickie Lee finally dropped out of school in the 11th grade, took her GED and enrolled in college in Tacoma. She moved to Huntington Beach, California on her 18th birthday, and found her way to Venice, California and to boyfriend Mark Vaughan who would support her in these formative years. She worked at odd jobs and enrolled in Santa Monica College, studying anthropology and music.

Early career [edit]

At the age of 21, Jones began to play in clubs in Venice. She met Alfred Johnson, a piano player and songwriter, and in the first week they worked together they wrote some of Jones's most famous songs, including Company and an incomplete version of Weasel and the White Boys Cool. Nick Mathe, a neighbor, took an interest in Jones's music, helped her get publicity photos with Bonnie Shiftman who was then at A&M, and in their off hours the three of them shot Miss Jones' first photos. Rickie Lee played music in showcases, worked with cover bands in clubs, and sat in with Venice jazz bands, where her cover of 'My Funny Valentine' became something of a local legend.

It wasn't until she moved to Hollywood that her career took off. In early 1978 and through the efforts of Ivan Ulz, she came to the attention of Dr. John and Little Feat's Lowell George. George recorded her song "Easy Money" for his first solo record. Jones also met Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss, who were to figure largely in her early career. Also in 1978, producers Lenny Waronker and Tommy LiPuma heard about her, and after a bidding war, signed Jones to Warner Brothers Records for a five-record deal. The unknown Jones was about to change the course of pop music at a time when it was highly divided by genre. If her early career accomplished anything, it was to help bring female musicians out of the prevailing folk rock genre and into different musical experience. Jones's multi-genre music and provocative stage show forged a new style of popular music.

In 1977, Jones met Tom Waits at The Troubadour after an Ivan Ulz show in which she had sung a few of her songs and one of her father's called The Moon is Made of Gold. The two would be lovers at the onset of her career, creating a lifelong association with one another. They were a popular couple at the time (Second City TV skits...) and moved in together. At the time Waits left his Tropicana days, and Jones was coming off a world wide tour in which she was booked as 'the new voice of America.' After Waits and Jones broke up, Jones hooked up with pal Sal Bernardi, who inspired the song "Weasel and the White Boys." He would remain a personal and musical partner for decades. Nominated for six Grammy Awards in 1980, Jones told her mentor Bob Regher that she would not attend the ceremony. Changing her mind at the last minute, the two raced to the event just in time for her to walk up and collect her 'best new artist' trophy, in her leather jacket and boa, signature beret and gloves. Her popular acceptance speech, in which she thanked her lawyers and her accountant (this was the year most of the winners, from Dylan to Neil Diamond, were thanking God), became a hallmark for speeches to come.

Jones and Waits were lovers of such enigmatic appeal it would be many decades before the media stopped asking them about one another. In fact, even after their breakup, Francis Ford Coppola asked Rickie Lee to collaborate with Mr. Waits on his upcoming film One from the Heart, but she balked, citing the recent breakup. Coppola responded that it would be perfect for the film, since the two main characters in the film are separated, and he asked her to reconsider. Jones still refused the job. It was then that Waits met his future wife, and Jones began work on Pirates, a Rolling Stone five-star record, which included "We Belong Together" and "A Lucky Guy," which were inspired by Waits. The album garnered praise from every corner of rock media at the time. Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Randy Newman, the Brecker Brothers and Steve Gadd were a few of the A-list musicians who helped to create her 'sophomore' effort, a study of the end of her love affair with Waits and the darkness that followed.

Early years: 1978–82 [edit]

By 1977, Jones was performing original material at the Ala Carte club in Hollywood with Alfred Johnson, with whom she had composed "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" and "Company". She was noticed there by rock journalist/attorney Stann Findelle, who wrote about her in Performance Magazine and advised her in her career for a short time. Jones' success on the club scene soon translated into songwriting kudos, when her friend Ivan Ulz introduced Lowell George of Little Feat to Jones' composition "Easy Money" by singing it to him over the telephone. George included the song on his album Thanks, I'll Eat it Here in 1978. It became the only single for George's first solo attempt, and final record before his death. The announcement of George's death was recorded on the same Rolling Stone cover featuring Rickie Lee Jones crouching in a black bra and white beret - an issue that would become the largest selling issue in the magazine's history up to that time. Her appearance - as an unknown (her debut record had been released less than a month before) - on Saturday Night Live television show on April 7, 1979 sparked an overnight sensation. She performed "Chuck E.'s in Love" and "Coolsville".

A four-song demo of material was circulated around the L.A. music scene in 1978, with Emmylou Harris later recalling that she had heard an early version of "The Last Chance Texaco" on the demo tape. The recordings came to the attention of Lenny Waronker, producer and executive at Warner Bros. Records. Jones was signed to the label, and work commenced on her debut album, co-produced by Waronker and Russ Titelman. Jones was courted by the major labels, and chose Waronker because of his work with Randy Newman, and because, she said, she had a vision of standing in his office the moment she saw his name on the back of Newman's Sail Away album.

Rickie Lee Jones was released in March 1979 and became a hit, buoyed by the success of the jazz-flavored single "Chuck E.'s In Love" (#4 Billboard Hot 100, 1979) and its accompanying video. The album, which included guest appearances by Dr. John, Randy Newman, and Michael McDonald, went to US #3 on the Billboard 200 and produced another US Top 40 hit with "Young Blood" (#40) in late 1979.

Following a successful world tour, the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, Jones secured five nominations at the Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, Song of the Year ("Chuck E.'s in Love"), and Best New Artist, which she won at the January 1980 ceremony. She was also voted Best Jazz Singer by Playboy magazine's critic and reader polls. Jones was covered by Time magazine on her very first professional show, in Boston, and they dubbed her "The Duchess of Coolsville."

After moving to New York City, Jones spent the majority of 1981 working on a follow-up album, written and recorded partly in reaction to the break-up of her relationship with Tom Waits sometime between late 1979 and early 1980. The songs were written between September 1979 and June 1981 - when the last lyrics to "Traces of the Western Slope" and the last bass on "A Lucky Guy" were put down. The recording sessions finally yielded Pirates in July 1981.

Rolling Stone remained fervent supporters of Jones, with a second cover feature in 1981; the magazine also included a glowing five-star assessment of Pirates, which became a commercially successful follow-up by reaching US #5 on the Billboard 200. A single, "A Lucky Guy", became the only Billboard Hot 100 hit from the album, peaking at #64, but "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" and "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" became minor Top 40 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. More importantly, historically, is the fact that in America "Woody and Dutch..." became a kind of commercial mainstay. The finger snaps and jive talk beat were imitated in advertisements for McDonald's, Dr. Pepper, and others.

Jones' quirky fashion as well became quickly edified as well, her skin-tight lycra pant suit, elbow length fingerless gloves, the famous red beret and the red high heels showed up in some capacity everywhere. Pat Benatar can be seen in Rickie Lee suits. Jones' career suffered from a lack of guidance after her mentor Bob Regher died in 1986, and her signature vocal sound was imitated by so many, few people born after 1990 seem to know who she is. Aside from being the first video star (her 11 minute WB short film was so successful in promoting her image that a year later MTV came into being), her influence on pop and jazz was prominent in the early years of her career.

Voted best jazz singer two years in a row by audiences and critics (Playboy and Rolling Stone polls, 1980, 1981), her insistence on covering jazz in a career that clearly was a pop career might have damaged her marketability, but it certainly opened the door for a wider scope of music from pop singers in general. Obscure jazz standards began to show up on the sudden rush of established pop singers to cover jazz standards (the obscure Billy Barnes ballad "Something Cool," for instance, had a rise in popularity after Jones introduced it in concert to rock audiences on her debut tour). Jones' impact on pop music may be rarely measured by the rock media, she was associated with no movement (punk, new wave, country rock) to bring her mileage when her own work was ebbing, but there is no doubt that her appearance turned the tide of pop music from disco to singer songwriter.

Another lengthy and successful tour into 1982 followed, before Jones moved back to California, settling in San Francisco. A partial tour memento, the EP Girl at Her Volcano, was issued originally as a 10" record in 1983, featuring a mix of live and studio cover versions of jazz and pop standards, as well as one Jones original, "Hey, Bub," which was recorded for Pirates. Jones then relocated to Paris.

Period of transition: 1983–89 [edit]

The remainder of the 1980s found Jones falling out of favor commercially and pursuing a more complex and experimental sound.

Jones settled in France and recorded new material, some of which was released on her third full-length solo album, The Magazine, in September 1984. The Magazine found Jones combining the melodic, jazz-inspired sound of her debut with the complex structures of Pirates, with a more synth-driven sound, owed to working closely with composer James Newton Howard on the album. Alongside the more commercially appealing material, Jones included a three-song suite, subtitled "Rorschachs", exploring multi-tracked vocals and synth patterns. Only the upbeat "The Real End" made it into the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, peaking at #82.

She began to pursue jazz standards, recording "The Moon Is Made of Gold", which was written by her father, and "Autumn Leaves" for Rob Wasserman's album Duets in 1985. Jones took a four-year break from her recording schedule, largely attributed to the deaths of her mentor Bob Regher and her father, Richard Loris Jones that same year.

Jones returned to the United States in 1987 after a tour of Israel and Norway, and the imminent birth of her daughter brought her home to California. In September 1988, work began on her fourth solo album following another Grammy nomination for her Wasserman collaboration "Autumn Leaves". With songs dating from the mid-1980s, Jones teamed up with Steely Dan's Walter Becker to craft Flying Cowboys, which was released on the Geffen Records label in September 1989. Jones also included some writing collaborations with her husband Pascal Nabet Meyer. "The Horses", co-written with Becker, was featured in the movie Jerry Maguire and became an Australian #1 hit single for Daryl Braithwaite in 1991. The album made the US Top 40, reaching #39 on the Billboard 200, with the college radio hit "Satellites" making it to #23 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. Jones ended the decade on a high note with her duet with Dr. John, a cover of "Makin' Whoopee", winning her second Grammy Award, this time in the category of Best Jazz Vocal Collaboration.

Experimentation and change: 1990–2001 [edit]

Following a tour with Lyle Lovett, Jones enlisted David Was to helm her idiosyncratic album of covers, Pop Pop, ranging from jazz and blues standards to Tin Pan Alley to Jimi Hendrix's "Up from the Skies". The album, released in September 1991, was a hit on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums (#8, 1991), but became her least commercially successful record yet, reaching #121 on the Billboard 200.

Soon after, The Orb issued "Little Fluffy Clouds", featuring a sampled Jones interview. However, Jones objected to the unauthorized use of her voice and pursued the issue in the legal system. In 1992 she toured extensively with Rob Wasserman, with whom she had collaborated in the mid-1980s.

Her swan song for Geffen Records was Traffic From Paradise, released in September 1993. The album was slightly more successful than its predecessor, reaching #111 on the Billboard 200, and was notable for its collaboration with Leo Kottke, its musical diversity, and a cover of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel", which was slated to be the title track for the Oscar-winning film Boys Don't Cry, when Bowie's publishing pulled the plug by asking for too much money from the little independent movie.

A number of television and movies had licensed her work in these years, including Thirtysomething, Frankie and Johnny, When a Man Loves a Woman, Jerry Maguire, Friends with Money and the French film Subway. Jones sang a duet with Lyle Lovett on "North Dakota" for his Joshua Judges Ruth CD.

Jones' first solo shows in 1994 paved the way for her "unplugged" acoustic album Naked Songs, released in September 1995 through a one-off deal with Reprise Records. The album, which reached US #121 on the Billboard 200, featured acoustic re-workings of Jones classics and album material, but no new songs.

Emphasizing her experimentation and change, Jones embraced electronic music for Ghostyhead, released on Reprise Records in June 1997. The album, a collaboration with Rick Boston (both are credited with production and with twenty-one instruments in common), found Jones employing beats, loops, and electronic rhythms, and also showcased Jones' connection with the trip-hop movement of the mid-to-late 1990s. Despite some positive reviews, it did not meet with commercial success, peaking at US #159 on the Billboard 200. There are critics who consider this her best record, and who believe that it had large impact on electronic singer-songwriter music that would emerge 10 years later.

1990 - 1996 seemed to be Jones' lowest professional ebb. Everything she recorded was met with extreme skepticism and even harsh criticism. Her live shows, on the other hand, were lauded as a return to form. She had not really been on a stage in America (at least the eastern half) in eight years when she toured for Flying Cowboys.

Jones' second album of cover versions, It's Like This, was released on the independent record label Artemis Records in September 2000. The album included cover versions of material by artists including The Beatles, Steely Dan, Marvin Gaye, and the Gershwin brothers. The album made it onto three Billboard charts — #148 on the Billboard 200, #10 on Top Internet Albums, and #42 on Top Independent Albums. The album also secured Jones another Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

After starting up her official website, Artemis issued an archival Jones release, Live at Red Rocks, in November 2001, featuring material recorded during the Flying Cowboys era tour of 1989-1990, including a Lyle Lovett duet.

Artistic renaissance: 2002 and beyond [edit]

After Ghostyhead, Jones largely retired from public view and admitted that she had battled writers' block. She spent much of her time at her home in Olympia, Washington, tending her garden and bringing up her now-teenage daughter Charlotte.

Released on the independent V2 in October 2003, The Evening of My Best Day featured influences from jazz, Celtic folk, blues, R&B, rock, and gospel, and spawned a successful and lengthy spurt of touring. The album peaked at US #189 on the Billboard 200. The CD helped to swing her career away from an apparent middle-of the-road perception, a posture she seemed furiously bent on avoiding. She invited punk bass icon Mike Watt (the Minutemen, Iggy Pop) to perform on "It Takes You There", while "Ugly Man" was a direct aim at the George Bush 'regime' evoking, with an anthem-like Hugh Masekela arrangement, what she termed 'the Black Panther horns', and calling for 'revolution, everywhere that you're not looking, revolution.'

Renewed interest in Jones led to the three-disc anthology Duchess of Coolsville: An Anthology, released through reissue specialists Rhino in June 2005. A lavish package, the alphabetically arranged release featured album songs, live material, covers, and demos, and featured essays by Jones as well as various collaborators, as well as tributes from artists including Randy Newman, Walter Becker, Quincy Jones, and Tori Amos.

Also in 2005, Jones was invited to take part in her boyfriend and collaborator Lee Cantelon's music version of his book The Words, a book of the words of Christ, set into simple chapters and themes. Cantelon's idea was to have various artists recite the text over primal rock music, but Jones elected to try something that had never been done, to improvise her own impression of the texts, melody and lyric, in stream of consciousness sessions, rather than read Jesus' words. The sessions were recorded at an artist's loft on Exposition Boulevard in Culver City. When Cantelon could no longer finish the project, Jones picked it up as her own record and hired Rob Schnaf to finish the production at Sunset Sound in 2007, and the result was The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, released on the independent New West Records in February 2007. It included "Circle in the Sand," recorded for the soundtrack to the film Friends With Money (2006), for which Jones also cut "Hillbilly Song." The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard debuted at #158 on the Billboard 200 and #12 on the Top Independent Albums tally. Writer Ann Powers included this on her list of Grammy-worthy CDs for 2007.

For her next project, Jones opted to finish half-written songs dating back as far as 1986 ("Wild Girl") as well as include new ones (the 2008-penned "The Gospel of Carlos, Norman and Smith," "Bonfires"). Working closely with long-time collaborator David Kalish, with whom Jones first worked on 1981's Pirates, Jones released Balm in Gilead on the Fantasy label in November 2009. The album also included a new recording of "The Moon Is Made Of Gold," a song written by her father Richard Loris Jones in 1954. Ben Harper, Victoria Williams, Jon Brion, Alison Krauss and the late Vic Chesnutt all made contributions to the album.

In May 2010 Jones performed at the Sydney Opera House as part of the VIVID festival.

On September 18, 2012, Rickie released The Devil You Know on Concorde Records. The Devil You Know includes a collection of covers produced by famed musician Ben Harper.

Other work [edit]

In 2001, Jones was the organizer of the web community "Furniture for the People", which is involved in gardening, social activism, bootleg exchange and left wing politics. She has produced records (including Leo Kottke's Peculiaroso), and provided a voiceover for Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, in which she played the Blue Fairy (Known as the Good Fairy or Fairy Godmother in the film). Jones also enjoys gardening.