{"id":17182,"date":"2017-03-31T12:39:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T19:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=17182"},"modified":"2017-03-31T12:39:48","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T19:39:48","slug":"rickie-lee-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2017\/03\/rickie-lee-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"RICKIE LEE JONES"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo Credit: Gina R. Binkley<\/p><\/div>\n

The Duchess of Coolsville returns with a collection of melodic new tunes<\/b><\/h2>\n

Rickie Lee Jones\u2019 career, by her own admission, has been consistent only in its inconsistency. Initially, commercial success came quickly with her 1979 self-titled debut\u2014and its megahit \u201cChuck E.\u2019s in Love\u201d\u2014followed by her highly praised sophomore set, Pirates<\/i> (1981).<\/p>\n

But the tangled trajectory she pursued from that point on perplexed the critics far more than it pleased them. A Rolling Stone<\/i> cover story, a Grammy, and a game-changing appearance on Saturday Night Live <\/i>soon gave way to critical drubbing and the scorn of those who found themselves unable to effectively pinpoint her niche.<\/p>\n

In truth, Jones was reticent to repeat herself. She chose instead to vary her palette by tackling standards, jazz, electronica and ambitious experimentation. Still, she managed to achieve intermittent success during the 1980s and \u201990s by placing songs on soundtracks and compilations. \u201cI have this habit when I go in a certain direction, I\u2019ll make a sudden left turn,\u201d Jones says. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you why, but I refuse to fall into any particular genre. I just hate people deciding about something before they even hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unpredictability has been the Chicago native\u2019s hallmark from the start. \u201cI remember sitting in a bar with Bette Midler and Tom Waits,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBette said, \u2018Let me tell you what\u2019s going to happen, honey. You\u2019re going to have moderate success with the first record and the second one, but then they\u2019re going to put you down. With the third one, you\u2019ll have a career.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I knew when I had huge success the first time out, the only way to survive was to do something unlike the first record. With Pirates<\/i>, I got a piano and went in a new direction, with lyrical references that were much darker. Luckily, the<\/p>\n

critics liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, circumstances weren\u2019t always so kind. \u201cAfter Pirates<\/i>, things got really hard for me,\u201d says Jones. \u201cPunk rock was on the rise. You had to dress that way, you had to hang with them. It was clear I was not part of any club. It wasn\u2019t a decade for solo, unique people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the singer-songwriter never hesitated to pursue her own muse, even with the increasing backlash. \u201cWhat hurt my feelings was, when it came to my more experimental work, I found other people getting attention for doing the same thing I was. They never mentioned Rickie Lee Jones! It was a dark time for my ego and my spirit,\u201d she says. \u201cNow it does suddenly feel better. It feels like we\u2019re painting the path for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of that optimism stems from the reaction she\u2019s garnered for her new album, The Other Side of Desire<\/i>. With it, the 61-year-old returns to the more accessible sound that characterized her earliest outings. Her first album of original material in a decade sums up the observations and experience gained over the course of her 35-year career with a renewed<\/p>\n

sense of melody.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to write simple songs that more people would like to listen to,\u201d Jones explains, \u201csongs that come from the folk-rock genre, storytelling mode, with repetitive verses. I wanted to write a song that basically said what it had to say in two or three minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the new music comes a peace Jones hasn\u2019t experienced in a while. \u201cIt\u2019s made me realize it\u2019s fine to not leave the palette I\u2019m working with,\u201d she says. \u201cIt shows a certain contentment with who I am. I\u2019d like to have some money in the bank. I\u2019d like to have some recognition. But you have to be in the here and now and be grateful for your life. Maybe I\u2019m just lucky, or maybe it\u2019s finally good timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Duchess of Coolsville returns with a collection of melodic new tunes Rickie Lee Jones\u2019 career, by her own admission, has been consistent only in its inconsistency. Initially, commercial success came quickly with her 1979 self-titled debut\u2014and its megahit \u201cChuck E.\u2019s in Love\u201d\u2014followed by her highly praised sophomore set, Pirates (1981). But the tangled trajectory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17184,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17182\/revisions\/17184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}