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Rickie Lee Jones

RICKIE LEE JONES has spent a life time dancing with her muse. She is the most iconic American female singer-songwriter of her time, a woman who outlasted all her adversaries–including youth and self-destruction. A seasoned humility brings her performances an authenticity that only long-enduring musicians achieve.

By the time she nineteen, JONES was living in Los Angeles, waiting tables and occasionally playing music in out of the way coffee houses and bars. All the while, she was developing her unique aesthetic: music that was sometimes spoken, often beautifully sung, and while emotionally accessible, she was writing lyrics as taut and complex as any by the great American poet, Elizabeth Bishop. In JONES’ voice and songs, we saw smoky stocking seams, love being everything but requited. And it was during these years that RICKIE LEE’s song, “Easy Money,” caught the attention of one musician and then the music industry. The song was recorded by Lowell George, the founder of the band, Little Feat. He used it on his solo album, Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here. Shortly thereafter, Warner Brothers auditioned JONES and quickly signed her to the label.

Her 1979 debut RICKIE LEE JONES (Warner Bros) won the Grammy for “Best New Artist.” She was hailed by one critic as a “highly touted new pop-jazz-singer-songwriter” and another critic as “one of the best–if not the best–artist of her generation.” In addition to the album’s brilliant songs–including the exceptional “On Saturday Afternoons in 1963,” the haunting “Last Chance Texaco,” and the popular “Chuck E’s in Love”–JONES was becoming a figure whose life was bearing a great deal of emulation by young women and men who found, in her deep and personal and idiosyncratic life and work, a model for the new generation of hipster.

The American culture was instantly intrigued. RICKIE LEE seemed as much of a hit as her song. She was the alternative to punk/new wave, representing the revitalization of the dying art of the pop song. She liked pop and said so. JONES’ work was the amalgamation of jazz and rock and pop, a percolating zygote that made itself into a brave new world called RICKIE LEE JONES. American culture was changed.

Her second release, PIRATES, was instantly hailed as one of the great albums of all time, garnering the elusive 5-star review and a second cover in Rolling Stone, RICKIE LEE JONES seemed to be able to do anything the boys could do, and on her own terms. Her impact would be felt long after, even when she herself became one of the long unrecognized American treasures.

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Album Review

Rickie Lee Jones: Pieces of Treasure

Read "Pieces of Treasure" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


È stata una relazione lunga e tormentata quella tra Rickie Lee Jones e il songbook jazzistico. Una relazione iniziata con le sue prime esibizioni pubbliche, oltre quarant'anni fa, che va avanti alimentata dall'amore, nonostante tutto. Diciamo questo perché la risposta di pubblico e critica è stata fredda e talvolta feroce. Jazz standards costellano molti suoi album e ne troviamo in particolare in Girl at Her Volcano del 1983 e in Pop Pop del 1991 ma solo oggi ...

6
Interview

Rickie Lee Jones: Peg Leg’s Granddaughter Rises Above

Read "Rickie Lee Jones:  Peg Leg’s Granddaughter Rises Above" reviewed by R.J. DeLuke


Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour, the memoir of the eminent Rickie Lee Jones, is not a collection of stories about the famous singer who sprouted from the hippie era under the radar before blazing like a shooting star across the American sky with her self-titled debut album that contained the megahit “Chuck E's in Love." Of course, Jones is that person and that story of a meteoric rise, quickly surpassing friends like Tom Waits in ...

642
Album Review

Rickie Lee Jones: Balm in Gilead

Read "Balm in Gilead" reviewed by Gina Vodegel


If a musical career spans a period of thirty years, there's bound to be ups and downs along the way. Rickie Lee Jones has always insisted on making her own choices, sometimes baffling her critics with yet another puzzle to work out. Here the Duchess of Coolsville combines her multiple talents as an artist, songwriter and producer with a little help from musical friends like Jon Brion, Bill Frisell, Brian Swartz, Pete Thomas and Reggie McBride.

The album ...

273
Live Review

Rickie Lee Jones: Alive in Albany, NY

Read "Rickie Lee Jones: Alive in Albany, NY" reviewed by R.J. DeLuke


Rickie Lee Jones is a pure artist. She’s not a dyed-in-the-wool jazzer, though improvisation is an important part of what she does (more than many jazz singers I’ve heard). She’s part poet, part beatnik. She’s part coquette and part of her just tells what she observes in life.

(Art... n’est pas?)

What she really is, is just Rickie Lee Jones. Period. She has a sound and an approach that is all her own, whether it’s a jazz standard — of ...

162
Album Review

Rickie Lee Jones: Live At Red Rocks

Read "Live At Red Rocks" reviewed by Ashley King


Live records are perhaps the most precarious of balancing acts. For too many artists, ventures into unplugged territory prove to be nothing more than overproduced exercises in self-indulgence. On the contrary, Live At Red Rocks, the most recent release from Rickie Lee Jones, is a refreshingly satisfying jaunt into this well-traveled arena.

In contrast to her 1995 live release Naked Song s, Red Rocks is not about showcasing Jones as a stripped down, acoustic singer-songwriter. But rather it is about ...

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283

Interview

Rickie Lee Jones on Bix, Billie and the art of song

Rickie Lee Jones on Bix, Billie and the art of song

Source: Michael Ricci

Rickie Lee Jones, the acclaimed singer and songwriter, is on a short tour that includes a Saturday stop at the Temple Performing Arts Center, formerly the Baptist Temple.

Jones' smashing debut album of 1979, Rickie Lee Jones, brought a jazz-infused, bohemian-poet ethos to both pop music and fashion, and her idiosyncratic approach to composition and singing has influenced artists from Tori Amos to Norah Jones.

Her most recent album, last year's Balm in Gilead, reflected on family, friends, maturity, and ...

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Performance / Tour

Rickie Lee Jones Plays Hollywood's Vista Theatre

Rickie Lee Jones Plays Hollywood's  Vista Theatre

Source: All About Jazz


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Performance / Tour

Rickie Lee Jones Adds Dates

Rickie Lee Jones Adds Dates

Source: JamBase

RICKIE LEE JONES ADDS FEBRUARY TOUR DATES IN SUPPORT OF BALM IN GILEAD

Rickie Lee Jones Rickie Lee Jones has added additional tour dates in February in support of her recently released album Balm in Gilead. The tour includes stops in Chicago, Seattle and Portland, and the set will feature songs from the new album as well as fan favorites from Jones' memorable past albums. The New Yorker called Balm in Gilead Jones' “strongest record of the second ...

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Performance / Tour

Rickie Lee Jones@largo at the Cornet

Rickie Lee Jones@largo at the Cornet

Source: Michael Ricci


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Concerts

Mar 26 Tue
Mar 27 Wed
Mar 29 Fri
Rickie Lee Jones
The Factory Floor
Marrickville, Australia
Apr 12 Fri
May 3 Fri

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Pieces of Treasure

Modern Recordings
2023

buy

Kicks

TOSOD Music
2019

buy

The Devil You Know

Concord Music Group
2012

buy

Balm in Gilead

Concord Music Group
2009

buy

The Sermon on...

Geffen Records
2007

buy

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