Rickie Lee Jones’ rich catalogue is re-discovered by Lea Andrews who was 12 when Jones was 25. As Rickie Lee road around Southern California with Tom Waits and Dr John, Lea connected with her music all the way from suburban Hertfordshire. Both of them are still living the musical life, even if RLJ may not yet have made it to Potters Bar.
Words and curation by Lea Andrews, cover art by Lina Moon
I was 12 when Rickie Lee Jones was 25. She had just released her debut eponymous album. Dr John, Randy Newman and Michael McDonald were all forever imprinted on these little storybook snapshots, the first of 17 albums to date. She went big, quickly.
By the time I was watching ‘The Kids from Fame’ tv series, she was on her EP ‘Girl at Her Volcano’ and it was about this time, at the awakening of my young adult self and sensibilities, that I discovered her, in my bedroom, along with Tom Waits, JJ Cale, and the others. Accessible storysmiths that lit up my suburban life and took me far away from Hertfordshire, with their tales of drinking and substance abuse, road trips and long nights under stars, things I thought I’d never see. Tom and JJ were slow burners but my love affair with Rickie burned fast and bright. I adored her religiously. Potters Bar certainly seemed a more colourful place once the Duchess of Coolsville came to town, bringing her cast of characters with her into my Abba postered bedroom. She opened the door for me into a world of music, lighting the torch on Jazz, pop, folk: nameless expressionism allowed to co-exist. Her first album was a soundtrack to late night smoking and talking about things for the first time. And not talking, for the first time. The track ‘Company’ from the first album, with its lyric:
“I’ll remember you too clearly, but I’ll survive another day. Conversations to share, when there’s no one there, I’ll imagine what you’d say.”
Perfect fodder for sobbing into a cider with a lava lamp burbling in quiet empathy nearby.
Looking back now, at my musical life, Rickie Lee has always been there, but it is her early work that stuck with me. The great thing about artists with such an extensive and broad catalogue of work is it sometimes depends on when you find them, and where you are in your own life, that dictates where the brushstrokes are the thickest. You may trawl and dig deeper, but it is often those first, formative listens that make their mark, especially if you are young (and if you’re lucky enough to hear their first work in ‘real time’).
Rickie Lee Jones is one of music’s greatest songwriters and story tellers, it largely doesn’t matter where you drop in, but I’m glad I began at the start.
Now, with the release of her memoir ‘Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour’ we can all dip into her history for the first time as she tells it like it is, was, and may have been. I feel her stories have been told already in her songs and yet here we are getting down and dirty into the details - the road trips, the birth of the stories that became the songs that became the inspiration for so many young artists in the late eighties and beyond.
Equally exciting and almost certainly a companion to this release, will be a limited edition set of albums to commemorate the 40th anniversary of ‘Pirates’ alongside her debut album and a disc of original ’77 demos plus a 1982 tour. This is really going to make Autumn 2021 warmer than expected.
Her real-life stories and the stories in her songs are intertwined and the book will serve to unlock a rich and genre-less history. It will send fans back to their vinyl, searching for hidden clues amongst the lyrics. You’ll find them for sure. If you’re unfamiliar? Start at the beginning. All of the treasures are there.
TRACK-BY-TRACK
‘My Funny Valentine’ (Girl at Her Volcano EP 1983 Warner Bros)
Recorded live at The Roxy in Los Angeles, with the superb Michael Ruff at the piano, this is a stand out version of an already seminal song. Everything on this EP is a golden moment, from Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Lush Life’ (also live) to the warm harmonies of ‘Under the Boardwalk’ but everything stops for the Rodgers and Hart interpretation. Her delivery, if it’s possible in such an over-recorded cover, delivers new delicacy into each phrase and she works seamlessly with Ruff communicating every line with such aching and longing. I strongly recommend seeking out the concert, to see Rickie working this song. YouTube has it. She kills this, it’s like it was written for her, about her love alone. She pulls everything out of the words and melody, and then some. Exquisite.
‘The Last Chance Texaco’ (Rickie Lee Jones 1979 Warner Bros)
The debut album ‘Rickie Lee Jones’ is surely one of the most assured starts to any career. Genuine, artless, with every song so stacked with imagery of sweeping Americana, so filled with characters, one can almost feel like a book has been read and a film has been watched at the end of it. The cast of Los Angeles A-list musicians on each song, along with the haunting and raw out of the blocks song writing, makes this ‘up there’ with anything by Waits, Steely Dan, Fagan, and it’s a crime that the songs aren’t played on the radio as standards. Pick any of them to be honest. But ‘The Last Chance Texaco’ will transport you. Joni Mitchell will speak about things with great authority, it goes without saying, but RLJ speaks to you. She cries as she sings, and the crying and the speaking and the singing all merge together and she becomes another instrument in her band.
‘We Belong Together’ (Pirates 1981 Warner Bros)
‘Pirates’ is often referred to as the Jones/Tom Waits break up volume-but the press has made much more of the Waits/Jones coupling than she ever did. It’s also when she dismantles and fragments her previous song structures even further into soundscapes and scenes from the meanderings of her mind. Continued support by LA’s finest, notably Steve Gadd recognisably on drums with this track, you can hear a Springsteen/Simon influence here. Long form storytelling, with no need for quite as many traditional structures anymore. ‘We Belong Together’ should’ve been covered by Springsteen. He still could.
‘Dat Dere’ (Pop Pop 1991 Geffen)
‘Pop Pop’ is such a joy of an album, for a start just get the whole thing and be done with it. Bongos, shakers, Charlie Haden on bass, vibes, a hurdy-gurdy. You just need to add two friends and a nice bottle of anything. ‘Dat Dere’ is a track written by Bobby Timmons who worked in Art Blakey’s band. Norah Jones and all the rest clearly followed in her footsteps here, with this relaxed on-the-porch session approach.
Valtz de Mon Pere (Lovers Waltz) (The Other Side of Desire 2015)
The first album of original material in a decade, and crowd funded at that! It’s a crime that looking at the larger music magazines, RLJ’s story and retrospectives of her work haven’t been maintained, discussed or explored with a little more reverence over the past 40 years. The same faces (generally white, American, English, male) litter the covers, and even though the balance is shifting at a snail’s pace, it’s too late for some. RLJ has been horribly overlooked by a large part of the music press and airwaves, and for someone so prolific and important to have had to crowd fund at all is nothing short of ridiculous, offensive even. However, there we are. This album was recorded around the time that she moved to New Orleans. It’s a strong set of songs and the ‘Valtz’ seems to me very beautiful and quite classic in its delivery. Her voice is as beautiful and fragile as anything Emmylou has sung, and reminiscent of Victoria Williams too.
Rickie Lee Jones memoirs are out now for a proper musical read, reviewed on Good Reads.
Lea Andrews is a writer teacher musician. Her music can be found via Facebook.
Lina Moon’s fan art is on her Instagram with fabulous renderings of Robert Smith, the Beatles and her other wonderful covers for Song Sommelier!