Description
Product Description
Have you met Ms. Jones?
One weekend night on primetime television, a then-unknown singer and vital part of the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz pop scene skyrocketed to fame overnight after a now iconic performance on Saturday Night Live. The year was 1979, the song “Chuck E’s in Love,” and the singer, donning her trademark red beret, was the soon to be pronounced “Duchess of Coolsville” (Time), Rickie Lee Jones.
Last Chance Texaco is the first ever no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock’s hardest working women in her own words. With candor and lyricism Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life: from her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers, to her father’s abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway, her beginnings at LA’s Troubadour club, to her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits, her battle with drugs, and longevity as a woman in rock and roll.
These are never-before-told stories of the girl in “the raspberry beret,” a songwriter who inspired American culture for decades.
Review
Advance Praise for Last Chance Texaco “A crackling debut memoir… Wise and gorgeous, this story is as poetic as the songs that made Jones famous.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)
“What makes this a most inspiring memoir is her absorbing storytelling, facility with language (no surprise there) and her fealty to integrity – commerce be damned." —Michael Simmons, MOJO
“This tender, fierce, intimate memoir is testament that Jones has lived a life as brave… and rich as her music—with love, heartbreak, addiction, and magic, sprinkled throughout.” —O Magazine
“Men leave, fame fizzles, family breaks your heart…but Jones knows a good story and how to tell it.” —Kirkus (starred review)
Praise for Rickie Lee Jones
“Rickie Lee Jones has been pushing down musical boundaries for over four decades with her hauntingly beautiful voice and fearless experimentation.” —NPR
“[Her] music has healing properties: the beauty of its melodies and the wisdom of its words soothe the soul and remind us what a peculiar treasure Jones is.” —Boston Globe
“Intimate and real . . . she feels like an old, confiding friend—plaintive and genuinely heartbreaking.” —Mother Jones
“One of the most intriguing, idiosyncratic vocalists of our time.” —USA Today
“A singular talent.” —Daily Mirror (UK)
“There has always been something defiant about Rickie Lee Jones . . . [with] a voice from a dream, elusive yet familiar, transcendent, a messenger from another place.” —Independent (UK)
“A standout international performer.” —The Australian
About the Author
Rickie Lee Jones has released seventeen record albums and received two Grammy Awards. She lives in New Orleans.