Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer from the United States. Over the course of a three-decade career, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards.
Background
Born in Chicago, Jones grew up in a family she has described as "lower-middle-class-hillbilly-hipster" in Chicago; Los Angeles; Phoenix, Arizona; and Olympia, Washington. Her grandfather, Frank, was born in West Virginia, the son of the town sheriff and dry goods store keeper, was the Vaudevillian singer/dancer/comedian known as "Peg Leg Jones." Frank lost his leg playing by the railroad tracks at a young age, as a child he learned to play - and dance, and execute flips from a standing position, with his peg leg. His wife, Myrtle, was a chorus girl, and the two of them traveled the Vaudeville circuit when they were not home in Chicago with their four children, Bea, Frank, Richard and Bobby. Richard was four when his mother was killed by a truck in front of her two young sons. Richard grew up in boarding schools and reformatories, running away to be in "Boys Town" where he appears in the documentary short that precedes the film. His mother, Myrtle, had been adopted into the Lee family in Virgina, her genealogy was unclear. Richard joined the army in World war II, served in North Africa and Sicily, was discharged with a purple heart. Rickie grew up listening to his war stories, eventually using them in her play-performance of the 1984 tour for "The Magazine"."
Jones has spoken of her Welsh, Irish and Dutch heritage. Her maternal grandfather, James Glen, was a black Irishman who returned to Ohio unable to work, after suffering through the gas bombing in France in WWI. Her maternal grandmother, Lydia Spice, was Dutch and French, and she met and married James while a young teenager. Bettye Jane, Rickie's mother, grew up with her three brothers in orphanages in Ohio. Lydia had four children by the time she was 21 years old, the county decided she was an unfit mother after her husband was put in jail for stealing chickens.
When a social worker came to remove all the children from the home, Lydia took her youngest, two year old Bettye, and ran through the corn field. Lydia worked nights, leaving Bettye with a sitter, when the social worker came in through the window and stole Bettye away. Bettye's image was featured in a cake flour magazine ad, and it became an iconic image used today, with the 'page boy' haircut and sweet face, the four year-old girl orphan was used to sell cakes, chocolate, and flour.
By the time her parents met, Richard had returned from the war and was working at a drug store lunch counter. Bettye stopped there each day on her way to and from work. The two met in 1946, and would have four children before the separated permanently in 1970. "Dick" worked as a waiter, restaurant manager and furniture mover. Besides studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, he studied painting and played the trumpet and guitar. The arts were welcome in the Jones household, a lively and emotional clan of middle class Americans, their backgrounds made them unable to quite fit into the strict social climate of the 50's. They moved each year, and their children suffered for this although apparently never financially. Both parents worked, so there was plenty of money for whatever the kids needed and what mom wanted for them including dance lessons, acting lessons, after school sports and new clothes each year. However there was never enough to buy a home, or perhaps simply no inclination to. Rickie Lee had been quoted as saying that she went to 11 schools by the 11th grade. Mr. Jones had landed a good job in a private club when his son was hurt in a motor cycle accident in 1965, an accident that tore the family apart. All the lessons ended, and Rickie's life was turned upside down by the grief of her mother and the alcoholism of her father. Within four years she would be smoking pot, dropping acid and running away herself, to be in rock festivals and be a part of her own family, the love generation. "I was the most naive hitch hiker on Hiway 1, that perhaps is what saved my life. I was fourteen and, while some things happened, I escaped unharmed, more or less, after hitching across the US to Detroit..."
Mr. Jones penned "The Moon is Made of Gold", a ballad for his children, and recorded it in a bus station record booth with his brother Bobby, a jazz guitarist and bass player who worked at the Queen Mary for many years. Rickie grew up hearing that record, and learning, not only how to sing, but understanding that she too could write a song, a story, be on stage, act, that it was what she was made to do. The parents took her to auditions at the Phoenix Little Theater before she could read, the father evidently recognizing his daughters talent long before any one else. Mr and Mrs Jones had an on again off again marriage until 1970, when he left the family and eventually married Jean Jones, with whom he lived until his death in 1986. Bettye did not remarry, but remained in the house Rickie bought for her, with her family near, until a series of strokes led to her inability to care for herself, and a medical mistake led to her death in 2006.
Rickie Lee was born in Chicago November 8, 1954, where she lived with her parents, brother and sister until 1959, when her family drove their new convertible Pontiac to Phoenix, Arizona. Rickie went to grade school in Phoenix and Glendale, studiing, at various times, acting, modeling, ballet and dance. She trained as an AAU swimmer for a year, swimming before and after school, spurred on by her mother, who took her to the training in between going to work in the lunch shift and going to work for the dinner shift. After her brother motorcycle accident in 1965, and her older sisters teenage pregnancy ( she moved out at the age of 15) Rickie began to find solace in her very active imagination, and submersed herself in pop music - she branched out from west side story to the recently discovered Beatles. Every song came easy to her, and in fact she still knows all the lyrics to songs she learned at the age of 11... , For a little girl growing up in the Arizona desert plagued by trauma, violence, and instability, music was the only outlet to the outside world. Richard and Betty split up in 1968, and Rickie went to Chicago to go to school, suddenly, in her eighth grade year. Then back to Phoenix, then back to Chicago, three schools in one year, but worse, thrust into the racial climate of Chicago in 1968. Rickie's life was threatened by young black students at her 8th grade graduation. The principle had to intercede to guarantee her safety.
The family remained together for nearly one more year, during Rickie's first year of high school. Her first love affair saw her lose her footing, she dropped acid, smoked pot, was involved in a car theft and ended up in juvenile detention, was nearly removed from her family. A few months later the family broke apart when mother moved, with her baby sister, to Olympia Washington. Rickie's father had become increasingly violent when he drank, and he drank every night. Rickie ran away - she had just transferred to a new school in the end of her freshman year, was working for her father every weekend. She caught a plane to Los Angeles and got a ride to a rock festival in Northridge.
She lived with hippies in San Diego for the summer of 1968. Her father found her in juvenile detention in Sunnydale, and took her to her mothers. Rickie went to two schools in Washington before the family moved to Seal Beach, where Rickie enrolled in Huntington Beach High, her third school for her sophomore year. She ran again in 1969, this time ending up in Detroit, arrested by the FBI crossing into the US, wearing no bra, sporting a white beret. "in danger of leading a lude and ludicious life" After nearly three weeks in the Detroit juvenile hall, her father was found. Her mother told the state that she did not want her back anymore. Her father took her back, again, this time to Kansas City, until the two took a bus across the north to Lacey, Washington, to King Authurs Trailer Court, where her mother was living with her sister. It was along way from the middle class life she had known, the devoted mother, and the singing, serious father. They stayed together for less than a year, Richard left one afternoon while his wife was at work and his daughters were home.
Rickie was kicked out of highschool for being 'undesirable' and immediately took her GED and entered college before her class had graduated. She had already been on the young side for her class, but at 16 she took her GED, and waited until she was 17 to go to enroll at Tacoma Community College, where she studied the liberal arts and music. A series of misadventures landed her in Tulsa OK, with a friend from Seal Beach, Mark Vaughan, who would become her boyfriend of three years, inspire her to go to college, work, and take care of herself.
She settled with Mark in Venice, California, at the age of eighteen in 1973. She earned her living by waiting tables and attending college in Santa Monica. At the age of 22 she met Alfred Johnson, an aspiring black singer/songwriter who shared a love of the music Laura Nyro and lyrics of Little Feat. He heard Rickie sing and insisted she come over to his apartment, which was littered with headless dolls and thousands of dollars in recording equipment. The two hit it off right away. They wrote a song the day after they met, and soon began working clubs together as a duet. The early songs saw Jones flushing out a style of her own, moving out of the black sound and into her own 'fathers daughter' sound, " less vibrato and more of my tone" the way he sang, it just seemed to come naturally to me, when i sang jazz. Her lyrics already had the budding humor and unique word play rhythm of Jones signature. NIck Mathe, ex school teacher and a neighbor, took an interest in her music, and helped her get publicity photos and booked her at some local showcase clubs. She was signed within six months of this first show, it was clear she was unique and unaffected, unpressured to join the 'new wave' or belong to the hotel California Rondstadt sound that permeated the radio at the time. Jones voice was totally unique, and she did not seem to be afraid of that, and it seemed like people loved her or hated her right away. She was that identifiable, instantly. When she met Lowell George in 1977, she was already singing jazz standards ("Makin' Whoopee", "Lush Life", "My Funny Valentine", "Something Cool") in local Venice jazz dives. These songs would find their way to her performances in the pop success of her first hit, and her persona would be established as a risk taker—mixing the jazz singer and singer/songwriter genres in a time when it had not been done. Jones met Tom Waits at The Troubadour, where they hang out on the sidewalk and sang. During the mid-1970s, Jones also met her long-time collaborator Sal Bernardi, who inspired her 'Weasle and the White Boys', and later, Tigers, (with the Blue Nile) Flying Cowboys Stewarts Coat, and the definitive harp playing became associated with her early work. She wrote horn charts including the harmonica. Her arrangements ala Miles Davis' of Sals harmonica created the haunting 'Traces of the Western Slopes," and, in 2003, Sal playing two harmonicas simultaneously on "Tree on allenford'. Another future collaborator appeared in her life in 1978, Dr. John, sent by legendary jazz producer Tommy La Puma, to check out Miss Jones for his label, and who would eventually produce the two of them singing "Makin' Whoopee" and win them both Grammys for best jazz duet.
Songwriter Tom Waits was her romantic interest during this period, the two met at the Troubadour during a three song guest spot she had in a fiends ( Ivan ULz). Tom and Rickie were inseparable after her record came out. Waits, who had released three records by the time 'Rickie lee Jones' debuted, was with her as she toured Europe and America in the summer of 1979. They moved in together after her last show in Los Angeles at the Variety Arts. They moved out a month later, having broken up suddenly, after Rickie told Tom she had a drug problem. Tom wanted nothing to do with drugs, and anyway the heat wave and no air conditioning and no where to go and he could not bear to be separated from her it was like they were going to eat each other. Jones went to New York and wrote 'Pirates' and ' Lucky Guy' Waits showed up and told her it was over. So she left, and then he called her. She went back to LA, he followed. Sometime in November 1979, Francis Ford Coppola asked Rickie Lee to collaborate with Waits on his upcoming film 'One from the Heart,' She balked, citing the recent break up. Francis responded that it would be perfect for the film, since the two characters are separated. He asked her to reconsider. She refused. Waits called in November, but Jones did not return his call. Waits met his wife, a secretary at Zoetrope, a month later. The two are still regarded as the 'coolest couple' although they never spoke to each other again.
Early success: 1978–82
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". 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 would be the only single for George's first solo, and final record. His 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 the popular and prestigious Saturday Night Live television show in April 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[citation needed]. 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.
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 had been recorded for Pirates. Jones then relocated to Paris.
Period of transition: 1983–89
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" 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[citation needed].
Jones returned to the United States in 1987 after a tour of Israel and Norway, and the impending 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 U.S. 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
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 U.S. #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 Warner Bros. 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 U.S. #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
Rickie Lee Jones performing on the Legacy Stage on June 15, 2007.
After Ghostyhead, Jones largely retired from public view and admitted that she had battled writers' block[citation needed]. 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 Masakala 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 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, and Alison Krauss all made contributions to the album.
Other work
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.
Discography
Albums
Singles
| Year |
Title |
Chart positions |
Album |
| U.S. Hot 100 |
U.S. Modern Rock |
U.S. Mainstream Rock |
UK Singles Chart[1] |
| 1979 |
"Chuck E.'s in Love" |
4 |
- |
- |
18 |
Rickie Lee Jones |
| "Youngblood" |
40 |
- |
- |
- |
| 1981 |
"A Lucky Guy" |
64 |
- |
- |
- |
Pirates |
| "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" |
- |
- |
40 |
- |
| "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" |
- |
- |
31 |
- |
| 1984 |
"The Real End" |
82 |
- |
- |
- |
The Magazine |
| 1989 |
"Satellites" |
- |
23 |
- |
- |
Flying Cowboys |
Other contributions
Sample
Audio samples of Rickie Lee Jones
References
- ^ a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 289. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
External links
