Catching Up With Rickie Lee Jones

I never know what to tell people when they ask me to describe Rickie Lee Jones’ music. Over the years, I’ve sung her praises to many friends and colleagues – even to a girl I once dated who responded, “I think I’m familiar with his work” – and I generally get one of two responses. Either they say, “Is she still making music? I kind of lost track of her after ‘Chuck E’s in Love.’” Or they ask, “What kind of music does she make?” This last question is a tough one to answer.

The fact is, Jones’ music doesn’t fit neatly into one style. Rather, she has drawn from many genres during her three-decade career, and no two of her albums are alike. Equally difficult to explain is why I love her music so much. Some things simply defy both easy explanation and critical analysis. I could tell you that I really like her voice and that I appreciate her willingness to take risks, but it goes beyond that. I’m not religious, but Rickie Lee Jones’ music touches a part of my soul that few other artists have access to.

Rickie Lee Jones burst onto the popular music scene in 1979 with her self-titled debut. The album was a major success both commercially and critically. “Chuck E’s in Love” – a midtempo bop tune about one of her Los Angeles cohorts, musician Chuck E. Weiss – was the opening track and a top-five single. But that was just the beginning. The fact is, every song on Rickie Lee Jones is worth hearing and each one is different from the next.

The second single, “Young Blood,” was a catchy song about nighttime adventures in L.A. Other highlights range from the now-classic torch song “Company” to the sassy, ’50s-style “Danny’s All-Star Joint” to the heartbreaking ballad “The Last Chance Texaco” to “Night Train,” another nighttime urban scenario that is less innocent than “Young Blood,” but just as evocative. I still get chills listening to Jones’ vocal on “Night Train” after all these years.

That first album scored Jones no small measure of success. In addition to the two hit singles, she graced the cover of Rolling Stone, appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1979, beating out Dire Straits among other acts. She was proclaimed by many to be the natural heir to Joni Mitchell, which was based as much on her music as on her long blonde hair, beret and guitar. But Jones proved to be her own artist.

Pirates, Jones’ sophomore set, came out in the summer of 1981. It was another great album, but bore little resemblance to her debut and included only eight songs. Some, like “Living It Up” and “Traces of the Western Slopes,” were lengthy story-songs that contained colorful characters and numerous tempo changes. This was the first of many left turns Jones would take during her career.

Since Pirates, she has released nine more studio efforts, two live sets, a mini-album and the three-disc anthology Duchess of Coolsville. And as I said earlier, no two of her albums are alike. Among her other endeavors, Jones has issued two collections of covers; tackled trip-hop on 1997’s Ghostyhead; and recorded a concept album about Jesus Christ, the 2007 masterpiece The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard. Like anyone else, I have my personal favorites in her catalogue. But I also feel that every one of her albums contains music that is worth hearing – and even the few that haven’t resonated with me as much are admirable because in each case Jones has followed her muse and taken chances. She could very easily have spent her career writing “Chuck E’s Still in Love” or “Chuck E Gets Divorced.”

2009 is a significant year for Jones in a number of respects. For one thing, it marks 30 years since her debut. But it’s also a year in which Jones has been particularly active. She contributed the lead track – a cover of Bob Dylan’s classic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” – to The Village, a new compilation celebrating the music that came out of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s.

And this month, she will release her latest studio album and Fantasy Records debut, Balm in Gilead. At 10 songs, this disc is more concise than some of her recent projects. The album was co-produced by Jones and longtime collaborator David Kalish and includes cameos from Ben Harper, Alison Krauss and an assortment of other artists. Highlights of Balm in Gilead range from the lovely, catchy opening track, “Wild Girl” (written about Jones’ daughter Charlotte) to the old-timey “The Moon is Made of Gold” (written by her late father Richard) to soulful cuts such as “The Gospel of Carlos, Norman and Smith” and “Old Enough,” the latter a duet with Harper.

I recently caught up with Rickie Lee Jones and have included excerpts from our conversation below. I found that her responses to my questions paralleled her music: sometimes they were abstract, other times more concrete – but always honest.

BRM: In the press release accompanying Balm in Gilead, you explain that the songs on this album were written over a period of 20 years. Tell me more about that. When did you decide that all of these songs might work together as an album?

Rickie Lee Jones: In each project, over the years, there have been songs that simply did not make it. They were not ready... but they existed.... It’s not that they were bad ideas, They just were not formed. Not that I don’t have ideas I throw away. [But] these songs .... were not just ideas. They were unfinished songs. So this is a recording of many songs that took longer to come to fruition. Perhaps I had not made a good second verse or finished a chorus to my satisfaction.

“Wild Girl” is the oldest, started before Flying Cowboys, I think in 1986, around the time I recorded “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” or “Satellites.” Those were in the same litter! I felt it would not really be heard, with the power I felt in it, if I put it out then. I did not have the finished story [or] the middle verses, just the front and back. I mean, I have written many, many verses but none were right. It took decades, and the need for it to be finished. I guess after all, the songs are made of a kind of flesh of our emotions. I needed to finished it. I wanted it.

The cool thing about that song is I started writing this before my daughter was even conceived, at least physically. I wanted to give her a song, and I wanted to give us a song to give to our children, to express without preaching. It’s hard. Parents always want to impart something and it gets tiresome for the kid. So i just talked about myself more or less, in fiction, and yet not… just [to] say, “Thank you, I am so glad I got to do this.” Raising Charlotte to learn one lesson: live to tell the tale.

Other songs [like] “Remember Me'” started in 1992, and “His Jewelled Floor” is maybe five or six years old... It was time to let them go or record them. Then there were new ones [like] “The Blue Ghazel.”

You’ve worked with a number of diverse collaborators over the years and the new album is no exception. What was it like singing with Ben Harper?

I did not really sing with Ben. He came in to David [Kalish’s] place and they did that work together. I met him a couple times, but I have not actually sat with him and sung.

What a sweet voice he has. Listening to him sing my lyrics, it was wonderful for me. Not many people sing my songs, much less sing them with their own interpretation. He really did a great job.

The opening song on Balm in Gilead, “Wild Girl,” is about your daughter. One of my favorite songs of yours, “The Horses,” was also about her and opened the album, Flying Cowboys. How is it different writing about her now than when she was a baby?

Yeah, “Wild Girl” we started before she was born. I think the gift of “Horses” was to say, I sense there will be trouble and disappointment in your life, our lives, and if there is, I want you to know I will be standing by. I am careful too: it’s her private life, she is an adult now. I have to explain… to her that [there] is nothing for her to live up to or down.

As it turns out, the lesson is mine, not hers. I had to learn to stop standing by all the time. The bird has to fly on her own! What a lesson. So from here, I feel more and more that the songs seem to stem from some other place... like... okay, I will say it... an angelic realm, where my higher self, or some self, knows what is to come and talks to me about it in symbols... Yes, I believe that.

I come from a family of troubled souls too, so it’s not a leap to imagine that my own daughter, no matter how I try to change history, may have a hard time as well. That “Horses” anticipates this might not be such a leap. But we all must anticipate this when we bear a child into the world. What will your journey be, and how can I help? What you learn is, the only thing you can do is stay alive, and keep loving. That's about it. Try not to go broke! Keep your sense of humor. Know that is in God’s hands.

Last time I interviewed you, I mentioned that each of your albums is different from the last. At the time, you said, “It’s in my nature to do something quite different every time I step up to work. I just seem to exhaust myself of one kind of thing and then am free to go on to some other thing.” Sadly, there are folks out there who lost track of you after your debut and have no idea about all the great music you’ve done since “Chuck E’s in Love.” Were you ever tempted to take fewer risks and try more consciously to write another hit?

Sure, I always try to write a hit. I think many of the songs I do are potentially songs that could be, if played over and over, songs that people wanted to buy, or even songs that affected other songs. I cannot debut again, I cannot bring the idea of a new kind of female personality or new kind of female timbre to the marketplace again. And maybe because the debut was so impactful, I always stand in the shadow of the amalgam of the times. But I do not think I have totally disappointed people musically. I have written unusual songs, and gone down paths that were consistently defiant of expectations. [For example], to do The Magazine in the heat of the electronic British invasion was courageous-- raw emotion amidst all that dismissal of feelings and spirituality.

I have always been aware of my work socially as well as artistically. And sometimes it is a defiance that is passed on. The “Chuck E's in Love” singer--jazzy drug girl--ex [Tom] Waits lover… I think that, while I might not have had [another big] hit, I had impact, and this must be what I wanted most of all. Money, she comes and goes.

Marketing of me simply ended. If there was one, just one cover story done on me now, in a magazine like Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, even Good Housekeeping! I am serious, one cover story that said here is the story of this American, this singer, this woman -- heck, this mom -- I think my career would be restored to a popular culture seat and not so far underground... I was a cover story kind of act, and this image has never gone away… I am not Sheryl Crow. I am a big, beautiful blonde who sings the shit out of “My Funny Valentine,” who is self-deprecating and shuffles and grins, and, really, is iconic. It is an unusual thing, what I am.

They want to know what your banner is, so they know if they want to carry that. Are you a folk singer who likes jazz? Are you a rocker? You know, it needs to be simple. I understand that. So what I am… I am a girl next door.... beautiful yet quirky singer..... rooted...musical...experimental... I mean, I think I am basically a conservative image. I don’t wear torn stockings, don’t sing atonal stuff, you know, like X for instance. But I traverse a wide range fearlessly. I like punk or western [music] or improvisation by jazz or rock, and I will take risks on those avenues. This is the intrinsic difference between me and other pop singers. I have emotion, good technique, and intensity, these are my main things. I am pretty but odd looking, and I am not a skinny woman. I have breasts. At any given moment, I am who and what I am, and I love me. I don’t like being fat when I am fat, but it does not make me not like myself.

I do not have a set list. I make it up every single night. I like to improvise songs, I like people to know that I trust them and feel their trust and want to take us places we have not been before. I mean, they just need to know what it is [and] then they can decide it they want to check it out. But with no information other than, “Hey that woman that did “Chuck E’s in Love” is still singing?” -- well, who would want to see that?

You co-produced the new album with David Kalish. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve worked with him as far back as the Pirates album. Tell me what you enjoy about collaborating with David.

David was a kid when I met him, maybe three, four years younger than me, but at the time 20 [or] 21 and a very good guitar player out of Philly. As years have gone by he has become a more 'roots' kind of guy, playing pedal steel and all the string instruments very well. He is a grouchy, enigmatic man, understanding and gently discussing the Kaballah while smoking 40 cigarettes and never ever smiling.

I took this project on with him in spite of some trepidation. Working with friends... you know. But that was also why I did it. I thought it had to be that friends, in these times especially, looked after one another. I worked at his studio, and as the project changed… he hung on best he could. Players have trouble with me. I am very creative, I move quickly through ideas, I do not plan. They have to clean up and organize after I finish. If they have the ability to do that, things go well.

Now you have the star engineers who work on Pro Tools with lesser talents who allow them to tell them how they will work. Imagine, the soap maker telling the play writer how many acts they will have, and what time they will rehearse. That's what it's like.

Recording, like performing, is a process. It is not the goal, it is the process by which we talk to humanity and leave our footprint behind. Some people have difficulty [with me] because I think they simply come from a pop background. I am truly a jazz artist. It is always different, each take, and I go where the spirit moves me. Technicians are not interested in spirit usually.

I like the old days. [Engineer] Lee Herschberg, you did not hear from him until you had no more tracks. Mark Linett [was] always smiling and once in a while [would say], 'That was really beautiful.' And man, he could keep track of every single idea, he understood the process and was there to make it happen. He not only recorded it but remembered what I sang.... “No, track 33 is the middle vocal for the second idea.” Now that was an engineer. You say this to a guy nowadays, they come out and sock you in the eye.

Sorry to ramble, I am enjoying these questions.

Throughout your career, you’ve periodically released albums that consist mainly of covers of other people’s songs. Do you see another collection of covers in your future?

I always sang jazz, my grandfather was a Vaudevillian and I grew up singing songs… I like to sing jazz, standards and other kinds of things.... And to me, the lyric and melody is just as real as my own. When I sing “Stay, funny valentine, stay,” I understand what that means. So it is always real.

I don’t see why I would not do more covers. Just need the right musical setting and reason to do them… I need to do a guitar-based recording of 1850s pioneer songs. Like that.

2009 marks 30 years since your debut album came out. Can I ask you about some of the songs from your debut? Just any memories you have of them from back in the day or how they feel to you now, whatever you prefer.

Company:

I wrote this while I had one of the few jobs I was able to hold, working for a gangster, kind of like a pretend employee. I just sat in the front office all day and wrote songs on the typewriter. I had this lyric when I got together with Alfred Johnson, whom I had met on the beach in Venice. Alfred was, and remains, a musical genius. Anyway, it was our first song together, I think. We wrote it in a 12 or 14-hour marathon, working out each bar, singing back and forth to each other. I sang the first line, he sang the next… It was a really emotional process. But when we were done, we had a beauty. I wish more people sang it. We tried to get Sinatra to do it. [Record executives] Mo Austin and Lenny [Waronker] actually flew to Vegas while I was recording to play him the song. But...

Young Blood:

I wrote that imagining what it would be like in downtown L.A., around Alvarado and Sunset… A way of having fun without going there. A girl named Pepe…again, challenging lyrics, I guess. “The city will make you dirty, but that’s the makeup on your face... love will wash you clean in the night’s disgrace...”

What does that mean, really? Well, just what it says. You find some redemption even in disgrace, with a little bit of love.

The Last Chance Texaco:

It is exactly as it ever was. It is a place that does not change. We can know it at any age. That gas station where all your luck has run out. And yes, someone is there. The man with the star. You can trust your car to the man who wears the star...

Night Train:

I have been doing this one on this tour [lately], a song I rarely did, it evoked too much emotion, singing “Oh mammaaaaaa.” It reminds me of this trip we took on a train to Chicago when I was little. It had been proceeded by a car trip running away from my dad... but then mom and dad got back together and we took the same route on train.

But also, it is made of fragments of women’s lives. Mom was stolen out of a window by a social worker, from her mother, and put in an orphanage. Around the time I wrote this, I had a friend, Pamela, who had a little baby girl who was in foster care. She was always talking about getting her baby back. And I think more often than not, when I played the song, I dedicated it to her.

Words by: Dave Steinfeld

Photo by: Greg Allen