Rickie Lee Jones went from the coffeehouses of Los Angeles to the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in what must have seemed like the blink of an eye to some observers.
Of course, no success story is quite that simple — and it would be a mistake to label this one as happening overnight. Yet, the singer-songwriter’s self-titled debut in 1979 was certainly met with immediate and overwhelming success, thanks to in large part to the now-iconic jazz-pop single “Chuck E.’s in Love.”
A year after the album’s release, Jones won the trophy for best new artist at the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards.
Jones is still going strong more than four decades later, splitting her time between recording new music, playing concerts — including two shows in one night up in Wine Country — and supporting her newly released memoir “Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour.”
I recently had the chance to chat with the star about the memoir, which has received praise from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR and other media outlets. For those who want to catch Jones in concert, she performs at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. July 9 at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena as part of the Blue Note Napa series. Tickets are $65-$95, bluenotenapa.com.
Q: Why did you want to write a memoir?
A: Because there are too many ghosts around and they are always tapping on my head and my shoulder telling me to write their story. So, I wrote their story out of respect to all the ghosts that follow me around.
Q: Which ghosts were the most persistent?
A: I kept hearing from my Aunt Bea, who is my father’s sister, who died when he was only 20 or 21. Legend had it that she was a jazz singer and a friend of Benny Goodman or the Dorseys. One of those characters would stay at her house when they passed through town.
So, I thought, “Well, she must have really been a singer.”
Then she died an untimely death.
So, I told her story, among others — the grandfather, the grandmother, the aunt and, on other side, all of those characters.
Q: Why was it important to you to include all these family members?
A: It’s a story of a family. And I’m one of the members of the family. People buy it because I’m the famous member. But I’m just one of the members of an incredible American story that includes vaudeville and hippies and rock stars and suicides and drug addiction and incredible triumph and tragedy.
And that’s the American story. That’s the one we don’t talk about enough. That’s everybody’s story, more or less.
That average story is so not average — so sublime in it’s details.
I was kind of obsessed with the idea that it was an American story. So in the title, I included an “American Troubador.” They took it out for the European (edition) because I guess American can have a particularly political or social definition that might make people not buy the book.
But, for Americans, I feel like anybody who lived in a cave or hitchhiked down a highway or sat along the road and played a guitar when they were 18 will understand what I mean when I say American.
Q: You don’t shy away from addressing the hard times in the book. How difficult was it go back and revisit some of those times?
A: I don’t go back. The past is always with me. There’s no traveling back. It’s just a question of what direction I choose to look in.
Once I wrote these stories down, they began to fade from my grasp.
I guess most people don’t see time the way I do. But I felt no distance from me at 8 (years old) from me at 48. It’s not a further reach. It’s just a different reach.
The memories are vivid and ever-present. It’s not hard, because it’s always with me. It’s no different than everyday.
It’s not a traumatic event that has wounded me in the future. It is that the past and future and the present are one.
That’s how I experienced them — I think
Q: You say the past is always with you. But did you find yourself sort of rediscovering any old memories while writing this book?
A: I remembered the night the man tried to break into our house. That was a memory that had been suppressed. At some point, some years ago, I remembered it. But then it went right back to wherever it had been.
When I was writing, I remembered that.
Scary monsters have haunted me all my childhood. I think it’s just as simple as watching a scary movie that had a big impact on me when I was little. But this was a real thing.
The man — the shadows from the street that cast him on the Venetian blinds was very much like a movie.
But then I realized that, “Oh, my God, ever single thing was real.”
There are still a lot of amazing things that I didn’t write about. Some of them drift around like a kaleidoscope.
But I crafted the book so that it would be like a great song — and not be heavy with too much trouble, not be happy story after happy story. And I could honor the relatives but also construct it so that the reader, when they put the book down, had a wonderful time and maybe wanted to read it again.
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