Rickie Lee Jones’s Life on the Road

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rickie Lee Jones emerged into the pop world fully formed; her début album was nominated for five Grammys, in 1980, and she won for Best New Artist. One of the songs on that record was “The Last Chance Texaco,” and Jones has made that the title of her new memoir. The song evokes a service station on a long stretch of highway, and Jones’s book reflects on her almost obsessive need to travel and uproot herself at almost any cost. “All I wanted to do was leave” from a very young age, she says.“When I talk about it from here, it seems like it was so horribly dangerous.” She adds, “Suddenly I’ll [say], ‘I think I’ll go to Big Sur,’ and I’m in a car, going. But the chaos and trouble that brings to a life!” The producer Scott Carrier, who hosts the podcast “Home of the Brave,” interviewed Jones near her home in New Orleans.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:12.8	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Right from the start, Ricky Lee Jones was a unique talent.
0:24.1	Her debut album was nominated for five Grammys in 1980,
0:26.4	and she won Best New Artist that year.
0:39.5	Jones brought together a singer-songwriter's attention to lyrics and storytelling with a jazz singer's creative freedom with her voice,
0:42.9	and for some years, she was pretty much everywhere.
0:46.6	One of the best songs on the debut album was called Last Chance Texaco,
0:51.5	and Ricky Lee Jones has made that the title of her new memoir.
0:55.1	Producer Scott Carrier went to talk with Jones at her home in New Orleans.
1:03.6	Okay, so it's Sunday morning, March 21st, and I'm in New Orleans, Louisiana.
1:13.6	It's walking down Rampart
1:15.6	going over to Jamie Del Apas House
1:19.6	to talk to Ricky Lee Jones,
1:22.6	Ricky and Jamie are friends.
1:25.6	And Jamie wrote to me and asked me if I would like to do a story about Ricky's new memoir,
1:34.2	Last Chance Texaco, which to me was kind of like a miracle because I've always sort of really
1:42.4	loved Ricky Lee Jones' music and followed her career.
1:47.0	I mean, I started listening to her albums in college, and I still listen to him now that I'm 64.
1:57.0	And I've always kind of felt like she's my guardian angel because her music makes me feel like
2:06.2	everything's going to be okay. And, you know, she's right, usually. But so they sent me
2:14.8	to her book and I read it and I really had no idea. I mean me her book, and I read it, and I really had no idea.
2:20.8	I mean, her book is about her life as a growing up leading up to when she makes it big.
	...

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