Rickie Lee Jones’s Life on the Road

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

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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 recent 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.

This story originally aired April 9, 2021.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production
0:07.0	of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:11.2	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:31.3	Right from the start, Ricky Lee Jones was a unique talent.
0:35.2	Her debut album was nominated for five Grammys in 1980 and she won best new artist that year.
0:41.0	Jones brought together a singer-songwriter's attention to lyrics and storytelling with
0:45.6	a jazz artist create a freedom with her voice.
0:49.9	One of her very best songs on that debut album was called Last Chance Texaco and Ricky
0:54.5	Lee Jones made that the title of her recent memoir.
0:58.3	Her producer Scott Carrier went to talk with her in New Orleans.
1:13.6	Walking down Grandpart, going over to Jamie the Apaz House to talk to Ricky Lee Jones,
1:22.8	Ricky and Jamie are friends and Jamie wrote to me and asked me if I would like to do a
1:30.8	story about Ricky's new memoir Last Chance Texaco which to me was kind of like a miracle
1:39.4	because I've always sort of really loved Ricky Lee Jones music and followed her career.
1:46.1	I mean, I start listening to her albums in college and I still listen to them now that
1:54.6	I'm 64 and I've always kind of felt like she's my guardian angel because her music makes
2:05.3	me feel like everything's going to be okay and you know, she's right, usually.
2:12.9	So they sent me the book and I read it and I really had no idea.
2:20.4	I mean, her book is about her life as a going up leading up to when she makes it big.
2:30.1	So it's not really about being a rock star, super star, it's about she had a really kind
2:36.8	of a rough childhood and she ended up running away repeatedly through high school and
2:43.6	the stories in the book are in a way really sad.
	...

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