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Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour
Have you met Ms. Jones?
One night in 1979, a woman in a red beret skyrocketed to fame after a performance on Saturday Night Live. The song was “Chuck E’s in Love,” and the singer, Rickie Lee Jones. A vital part of the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz pop scene, she would soon be pronounced “Duchess of Coolsville” by TIME magazine.
Last Chance Texaco is the first no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock’s hardest working women in her own words. With candour and lyricism, Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life, including her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers; her father’s abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway; her beginnings at LA’s Troubadour club; her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits and her battle with drugs; and her longevity as a woman in rock and roll.
These are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a songwriter who would inspire American culture for decades.
One night in 1979, a woman in a red beret skyrocketed to fame after a performance on Saturday Night Live. The song was “Chuck E’s in Love,” and the singer, Rickie Lee Jones. A vital part of the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz pop scene, she would soon be pronounced “Duchess of Coolsville” by TIME magazine.
Last Chance Texaco is the first no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock’s hardest working women in her own words. With candour and lyricism, Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life, including her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers; her father’s abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway; her beginnings at LA’s Troubadour club; her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits and her battle with drugs; and her longevity as a woman in rock and roll.
These are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a songwriter who would inspire American culture for decades.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 6, 2021
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April 2, 2021
"He was going to learn the hard way that I was no pop star, no rock star, I was Rickie-star."
I love Rickie Lee Jones' music, especially the second half of her career, the 1990s onwards. It's the time she sort of was a bit 'forgotten' by people, and she became a bit more interesting and experimental. Instead of panicking, she refocused herself and took chances, a brave thing to do, and I appreciate her music from that period even more.
In this, her autobiography, she speeds through this period in the last few chapters. A large part of the book concerns her youth, and normally an artist's child years tend not to be the most riveting, but good lord, miss Jones certainly had an eventful youth! It's shocking, and moving, and funny.
"To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves."
The book then morphs into a story about her teen years, her immersion into late 60s hippie culture (and its downfall), and her first serious forays into music.
Finally we get to her early life in Los Angeles, where she records her first album. She goes into quite some detail how her songs got written.
"There he was, Tom Waits. He wore a hat and he held his cigarette like it was a magic wand. An old and short magic wand, worn down from doing too much magic."
This is also the part were Tom Waits appears. It is also the part where heroin abuse appears. The two are connected, but not in what might seem the most obvious way.
"Human or divine, family sings a song no one else can hear, and if you will only listen, they will sing it each night until you are fast asleep."
Jones writes lyrical, flowing prose, dropping bits of lyrics in. It's a moving story, but even more it's very witty and funny. You instantly get the feeling how personal this is, how she's letting you in on a secret.
I wish she had written a bit more about the later period, when her fame was waning, how her music started to explore new avenues, but I'll happily take what I can get.
(Thanks to Grove Press for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
I love Rickie Lee Jones' music, especially the second half of her career, the 1990s onwards. It's the time she sort of was a bit 'forgotten' by people, and she became a bit more interesting and experimental. Instead of panicking, she refocused herself and took chances, a brave thing to do, and I appreciate her music from that period even more.
In this, her autobiography, she speeds through this period in the last few chapters. A large part of the book concerns her youth, and normally an artist's child years tend not to be the most riveting, but good lord, miss Jones certainly had an eventful youth! It's shocking, and moving, and funny.
"To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves."
The book then morphs into a story about her teen years, her immersion into late 60s hippie culture (and its downfall), and her first serious forays into music.
Finally we get to her early life in Los Angeles, where she records her first album. She goes into quite some detail how her songs got written.
"There he was, Tom Waits. He wore a hat and he held his cigarette like it was a magic wand. An old and short magic wand, worn down from doing too much magic."
This is also the part were Tom Waits appears. It is also the part where heroin abuse appears. The two are connected, but not in what might seem the most obvious way.
"Human or divine, family sings a song no one else can hear, and if you will only listen, they will sing it each night until you are fast asleep."
Jones writes lyrical, flowing prose, dropping bits of lyrics in. It's a moving story, but even more it's very witty and funny. You instantly get the feeling how personal this is, how she's letting you in on a secret.
I wish she had written a bit more about the later period, when her fame was waning, how her music started to explore new avenues, but I'll happily take what I can get.
(Thanks to Grove Press for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
July 27, 2023
I never saw myself as the “girl” in my musical imagination. I was always the boy, the one who had the power, the one who made up the songs and stood on the stage. I would never be the “seamstress for the band”—I was the band.
I first heard Rickie Lee Jones's self-titled debut album sometime in the late 90s, when I was at university. I looked at the picture of her smoking a cigarillo on the cover and listened to her drawling those verses, and I thought she was the coolest thing I had ever heard. Still do, pretty much. ‘After Hours’ is something I continue to play at the end of a long night or when I'm feeling lonely. And ‘Easy Money’ is, I think, one of the sexiest songs ever recorded – though you wouldn't necessarily think so from the lyrics. ‘I was a sexy girl,’ Jones writes here, ‘and my sexuality was infused into everything I wrote. That's part of the magic. More goes into the words than what you intend.’
I've had this sitting on the shelf for a couple of years. I remember cracking it open experimentally in Waterstones and immediately squinting down at the following passage:
When I was twenty-three years old I drove around L.A. with Tom Waits. We'd cruise along Highway 1 in his new 1963 Thunderbird. With my blonde hair flying out the window and both of us sweating in the summer sun, the alcohol seeped from our pores and the sex smell still soaked our clothes and our hair.
OK, so you're the coolest bitch alive, we get it. When Tom Waits sang about the seedier side of life, of course, it was never entirely clear how much he was writing from experience and how much he was slumming it, or just putting on some kind of an act, however heartfelt. But Rickie Lee Jones, it turns out, really has lived the life, and she talks about it here with all the bluntness and indulgence of a wounded poet.
Hers was an upbringing of poverty and misfortune and continual moving around – half a dozen schools in the space of an academic year, staying in run-down motels, sleeping in Murphy beds, managing casual violence and alcoholic parents and intermittent neglect. With a perennially drunk, sometimes absent father, a brother with a crippling injury, and a mother who had retreated inside herself, Jones's family was, she says, ‘something like a nuclear submarine waiting for a signal to destroy all known life’.
No wonder she seems to have taken every opportunity to run off on her own. Travelling from Arizona to California in the mythic year of 1969, she thumbed up and down the highway, lived in a hippie commune in a cave, helped out with drug runs into Mexico, fended off a thousand predatory men, and shacked up more or less willingly with anyone reasonably kind who had a bed and some food to spare. It almost sounds romantic, until she reminds you that she was only fourteen at the time.
Every ride was a performance for me because almost every guy was sizing me up for sex. Perhaps they wanted to scare or to shame me as they drove, flicking their dicks till they quietly came, or they wanted to rape me—loud and furious. Which was it? I had to assess every ride in just a minute or two, and figure out what part to play. Am I a tough broad? Am I an innocent young girl? Am I me—which me am I?
The way Jones writes about this stuff is very honest and apolitical…she does not sugarcoat anything, she doesn't pretend she didn't make stupid decisions and get hurt, but she also doesn't pretend that there wasn't a thrill, a mystery, a romance to it all. It's one of the most revealing and nuanced depictions of that time and place that I've read.
It culminates in her slow, backdoor infiltration of the local music scene in LA in the late 1970s, where, finally, her talent and originality became impossible to deny. ‘I became a fixture in Venice, skipping barefoot along the boardwalk with my long blonde hair and still no bra,’ she says, never one to miss an opportunity to admire her younger self from the slightly bemused perspective of her late sixties.
Whether it was the bare feet, the blonde hair or the bralessness that attracted Tom Waits is unclear, but their on-again-off-again relationship gets a fascinating treatment here. It's been written about inexpertly before by Waits biographers, but there has never been a good Tom Waits biography and there probably never will be unless he decides to write one himself, which seems unlikely given his love of privacy. So Rickie's sly inside information is given out playfully.
Our disciples rippled out into the world—followers. You can still see them today. Of course I remain the unseen image at the Last Supper. Was I ever there? Scholars disagree. Do women have an impact on men or is it only the other way around?
Her writing is sometimes a little unsure in terms of overall structure, but on the level of the sentence she is full of beauty and invention. Her relationship with Waits is rendered as a kind of spiritual event (‘we were religions, we converted to each other, we inspired each other and we spoke in tongues’), while its protracted implosion is described in terms of climatic collapse: ‘Eskimos began migrating south and all the mammoths died away.’
I was completely obsessed with this book while I was reading it. I recited bits out to people around me, I played her music constantly in the background; I felt half in love with her every time I turned the pages. It's an extraordinary life story, and you can only feel that after what she went though, she deserved every bit of success and happiness that has come to her, and (given how underrated I think she is) quite a lot more besides. A lot of comparable talents have driven on the road she and her beret laid down, but no one with half her style or self-possession has come along since.
August 10, 2021
I remember the beginning of her stardom with Chuck E. and the SNL appearance and I remember still that my suburban teenaged friends and I lounging on floors (bc that was how you watched SNL then) chatted after how we were a little awed but very charmed by her total commitment.
I carried her cassettes in my secondhand cars for decades, rewinding perfectly to replay and replay some of my favorite songs: The Horses, Company, Last Chance Texaco, Coolsville, Ghetto of My Mind... the list goes on too long to have it all here. Now it is digital and even longer.
But I think even if I wasn't a fan of her music, I think I'd still have purchased this. When done right, the well-told personal story is more fascinating to me than any tale. And as a world-class storyteller, RLJ meets the moment.
Her story has elements that I and many other mid-20th century American kids recognize too well: broken homes, drugs and drink, friends and love dropping in and out, and violence out there on the road, which astonishingly, was often just a near-miss for Rickie and for so many of us. At least she had the job of a Troubadour to explain why she stayed (stays) out there for so long. Even with the romantic job description, she admits to the dead-ends she herself pursued, the people she may have moved on from maybe before their time in her life should have been completed. But that's the deal isn't it - if you keep moving forward, you're gonna leave people behind. Leaving is the drug many of us can't kick.
If you are looking for "famous people" stories, she throws in a few, but only because they are meaningful to her travels. This is an artist's story, and hers to decide what and who was memorable, life-changing, and illustrative. Her empathy for those who were often a roadblock is extraordinary to me, but not surprising, since that sweetness and tenderness for her fellow travelers was and is always in her work.
In the song that shares the title, it's the last chance for love along a road that may not have options coming up again. In the memoir, there is hope and promise in Rickie's story that she has come to see success is about choosing new happy over the old hurt, and the freedom to create over the pursuit of empty fame. She also accepts the importance of family, realizing that they always have the sign lit for each other.
And of course, her travel story is certainly not done yet. So, if you see a woman with a guitar, a smile, a sweet voice, and a lot of killer songs under her arm...
I carried her cassettes in my secondhand cars for decades, rewinding perfectly to replay and replay some of my favorite songs: The Horses, Company, Last Chance Texaco, Coolsville, Ghetto of My Mind... the list goes on too long to have it all here. Now it is digital and even longer.
But I think even if I wasn't a fan of her music, I think I'd still have purchased this. When done right, the well-told personal story is more fascinating to me than any tale. And as a world-class storyteller, RLJ meets the moment.
Her story has elements that I and many other mid-20th century American kids recognize too well: broken homes, drugs and drink, friends and love dropping in and out, and violence out there on the road, which astonishingly, was often just a near-miss for Rickie and for so many of us. At least she had the job of a Troubadour to explain why she stayed (stays) out there for so long. Even with the romantic job description, she admits to the dead-ends she herself pursued, the people she may have moved on from maybe before their time in her life should have been completed. But that's the deal isn't it - if you keep moving forward, you're gonna leave people behind. Leaving is the drug many of us can't kick.
If you are looking for "famous people" stories, she throws in a few, but only because they are meaningful to her travels. This is an artist's story, and hers to decide what and who was memorable, life-changing, and illustrative. Her empathy for those who were often a roadblock is extraordinary to me, but not surprising, since that sweetness and tenderness for her fellow travelers was and is always in her work.
In the song that shares the title, it's the last chance for love along a road that may not have options coming up again. In the memoir, there is hope and promise in Rickie's story that she has come to see success is about choosing new happy over the old hurt, and the freedom to create over the pursuit of empty fame. She also accepts the importance of family, realizing that they always have the sign lit for each other.
And of course, her travel story is certainly not done yet. So, if you see a woman with a guitar, a smile, a sweet voice, and a lot of killer songs under her arm...
October 28, 2021
They say that one should never meet one's heroes and boy are they right. I've been a fan of Rickie Lee Jones since the 80s and proudly supported her crowdsourcing to make a new album. Yes I love Rickie Lee. I did however not know much about her as a person. To me her music was enough. This book made me curious. Who was this wonderful artist I've loved all these years. Well it turned out that even Rickie Lee does not really know.
Never before have I read a biography with so much whining. It's always other people's fault. Even when Rickie Lee does something wrong it is because someone else did something to make her feel that way. She never takes responsibility for anything or tries to understand why people give up on her. A good example is when she says that she would "for some reason" always get fired. Well if you are always getting fired then you must be doing something wrong? Right? I never got the feeling that Rickie Lee looked into the mirror. Ever.
A huge part of the book is about her teenage years when she wandered around America and Canada. She moves in with people who soon give up on her and throw her out. She is always hurt when this happens. One gets the feeling that she thought the world owed her something. That she had the right to be a freeloader. Every person she meets is valued by this standard. If they helped her then they were good people. If they did not help her they were bad. What's even more absurd, she hated every freeloader who came across her path. I guess she alone had the rights to that role. And even though she is generous in compliments when people are kind to her, never do we hear of her kindness to others. People are only of value if they are of use to her.
And then there is the endless, I'm a woman and most men are evil. I'm not saying that she is always wrong there but you can't look at everything in your life through feminist glasses. The world is more complex than that. A good example is her second album. Here is an artist who got an amazing break with her first album but still it is the music industry that treated her badly because she was a woman. She got all the money she needed to make her second album. She says it was her best album (like it is a fact) but she got no awards for it. Well she is hardly the first artist to experience that, be it male or female. Great art is not always recognized. It does not have to have anything to do with the fact that she is a woman. You don't hear Björk complaining that she is not as big today as she was when she made her Debut album, still she is in many ways making better music. It's life. Suck it up!
I still love her music and lyrics. I just can't stand the person I got to know in this book. And that's OK. I have no problem separating art from the artist.
So you have been warned. Enter at your own risk.
Never before have I read a biography with so much whining. It's always other people's fault. Even when Rickie Lee does something wrong it is because someone else did something to make her feel that way. She never takes responsibility for anything or tries to understand why people give up on her. A good example is when she says that she would "for some reason" always get fired. Well if you are always getting fired then you must be doing something wrong? Right? I never got the feeling that Rickie Lee looked into the mirror. Ever.
A huge part of the book is about her teenage years when she wandered around America and Canada. She moves in with people who soon give up on her and throw her out. She is always hurt when this happens. One gets the feeling that she thought the world owed her something. That she had the right to be a freeloader. Every person she meets is valued by this standard. If they helped her then they were good people. If they did not help her they were bad. What's even more absurd, she hated every freeloader who came across her path. I guess she alone had the rights to that role. And even though she is generous in compliments when people are kind to her, never do we hear of her kindness to others. People are only of value if they are of use to her.
And then there is the endless, I'm a woman and most men are evil. I'm not saying that she is always wrong there but you can't look at everything in your life through feminist glasses. The world is more complex than that. A good example is her second album. Here is an artist who got an amazing break with her first album but still it is the music industry that treated her badly because she was a woman. She got all the money she needed to make her second album. She says it was her best album (like it is a fact) but she got no awards for it. Well she is hardly the first artist to experience that, be it male or female. Great art is not always recognized. It does not have to have anything to do with the fact that she is a woman. You don't hear Björk complaining that she is not as big today as she was when she made her Debut album, still she is in many ways making better music. It's life. Suck it up!
I still love her music and lyrics. I just can't stand the person I got to know in this book. And that's OK. I have no problem separating art from the artist.
So you have been warned. Enter at your own risk.
April 26, 2022
Rickie Lee Jones makes music that is special, and I had no idea of anything from her life. So this was a great read. Personally I would have liked to read more about her motherhood and music life, I´m always wondering how it is for everyone, but her daughter is only mentioned very few times. She centers more on her relationship with her parents.
April 1, 2021
Ricki Lee Jones broke music in 1979 with the freshest, coolest, emotionally charged work unlike anything else out there. As a young record store clerk I was lucky enough to score a promotional copy of her debut album and was blown away. This was an original voice. I was happy to see Ricki was publishing her autobiography, Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour. I am always anxious to read music bios, even if often left with an empty disappointment after slogging through the childhood years and then enduring endless self-congratulatory accomplishments with little real insight.
Ricki is not just a songwriter, she is a writer. She tells her story, her family's story, with skill. There's a magic to her early childhood and the chord she strikes is so easy to identify with. You are jolted when the hardships hit and you pull for her when she struggles or stumbles on her journey, all the time getting insight into the songs she has set out for us. We see Ricki make it, we see her wrestle with heroin, and we see her conquer her demons and put her career into perspective (we get Tom Waits, too). She says show business is the business of showing your life to the world... and she does this impressively.
Five out of five stars. Thank you to Grove Atlantic, NetGalley, and Ricki Lee Jones for the Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for this review. #LastChanceTexaco #NetGalley
Ricki is not just a songwriter, she is a writer. She tells her story, her family's story, with skill. There's a magic to her early childhood and the chord she strikes is so easy to identify with. You are jolted when the hardships hit and you pull for her when she struggles or stumbles on her journey, all the time getting insight into the songs she has set out for us. We see Ricki make it, we see her wrestle with heroin, and we see her conquer her demons and put her career into perspective (we get Tom Waits, too). She says show business is the business of showing your life to the world... and she does this impressively.
Five out of five stars. Thank you to Grove Atlantic, NetGalley, and Ricki Lee Jones for the Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for this review. #LastChanceTexaco #NetGalley
June 2, 2021
I have been a Rickie Lee Jones fan, since her first LP.
I never wavered, she writes in her memoir about how difficult it had been to continue to keep her career on track with fans who were fickle & music reviewers who were cruel.
She continued onward & in this book she analyzes everything that happened to her.
She discusses the painful jabs & the joy that her family continued to bring into her life, even when she least expected it.
In concert, she will tell stories about her songs.
One of my favorites is how she came to pen "Company" ~this song is perfection & honestly~it will make me burst into tears each & every time.
It is that perfect.
When I saw her in December of 2018, she said that she wrote this song & that Frank Sinatra had shown interest.
But then he changed his mind.
FRANK SINATRA!!
She wrote the song with Alfred Johnson. . . .
in her memoir, she writes how she came to have her first songwriting partner.
I will not give those moments away, but this partnership, propelled her towards The Troubadour & the people who would believe as fiercely, record producers, other musicians, they would believe~as she did, in her talent & artistry.
Alfred Johnson told her that she was going to be a star, she was still not sure. He was.
But he had to make a hard choice & he stepped away.
She writes:
" I think he understood better than I did that my music was deeply personal & ultimately my solitary exploration. I alone would live through my tragedies. I alone was responsible for laying bare my emotions. I alone lived my life into music. My deepest emotions are universal; the further inside myself I go, the closer I am to mankind. When I sing, you can hear your own teardrops falling on my windowsill" Page 237
When I hear "Company" ~ I do ~indeed~ hear those teardrops fall.
"Last Chance Texaco~Chronicles Of An American Troubadour" is a memoir that simply tears at your heart. She lays bare a lot of the pain she endured and moments she has lived through. And she shares so much of her adventures as a teenager, out on the road, going to concerts, managing her way up & down the West Coast. Just Amazing.
She writes of her family life, and of the musicians & entertainers along her bloodlines that came before her.
She writes of her first lp & how that was a whirlwind.
She REMINDS us that she ~Rickie Lee Jones~created the FIRST music video.
Yes.......she did that.
She writes about SNL & how Coolsville WAS going to be sung, no matter what & of course, it was.
As a fan, I felt that I was there with her, I kept recalling to myself what I was doing as she was writing about her career trajectory.
She never gave up. I never stopped being a fan.
She does not speak, in depth, of Mr. Waits until page 320.
He is mentioned here & there, but only in passing until then.
It is heartbreaking to read her words of his exit.
It is unfathomable to me~that still he refuses to speak to her. I remember reading an interview where she says she ran into him at a benefit, DECADES later & he refused to speak to her.
That pain is still there.
She writes of the time at Chasens, after the Grammys (Dylan Fans will know about this moment, as it is captured in a neat Getty photograph) where Bob Dylan tells her "Don't ever quit. You are a real poet."
And how Russ Titleman was beside himself, in fan boy glory, giggling
"Bob Dylan just called you a real poet".
This book has so many moments like this.
Rickie Lee Jones has been around so many of our musical hero's.
She is one of them.
She REMAINS one of them.
This book is such a great read.
I am so over the moon, that she gave this to us.
I, initially, took it took it to work & after my lunch walk, I would sit down & read for 45 minutes or so.
But this week, as I neared the last 60 pages, I ended up staying up late to complete the read.
It is just SUCH a good book.
There are so many photos of her, and each one is like one more gift to her fans.
I adore this woman & cannot recommend this book enough.
READ this BOOK !!!
I never wavered, she writes in her memoir about how difficult it had been to continue to keep her career on track with fans who were fickle & music reviewers who were cruel.
She continued onward & in this book she analyzes everything that happened to her.
She discusses the painful jabs & the joy that her family continued to bring into her life, even when she least expected it.
In concert, she will tell stories about her songs.
One of my favorites is how she came to pen "Company" ~this song is perfection & honestly~it will make me burst into tears each & every time.
It is that perfect.
When I saw her in December of 2018, she said that she wrote this song & that Frank Sinatra had shown interest.
But then he changed his mind.
FRANK SINATRA!!
She wrote the song with Alfred Johnson. . . .
in her memoir, she writes how she came to have her first songwriting partner.
I will not give those moments away, but this partnership, propelled her towards The Troubadour & the people who would believe as fiercely, record producers, other musicians, they would believe~as she did, in her talent & artistry.
Alfred Johnson told her that she was going to be a star, she was still not sure. He was.
But he had to make a hard choice & he stepped away.
She writes:
" I think he understood better than I did that my music was deeply personal & ultimately my solitary exploration. I alone would live through my tragedies. I alone was responsible for laying bare my emotions. I alone lived my life into music. My deepest emotions are universal; the further inside myself I go, the closer I am to mankind. When I sing, you can hear your own teardrops falling on my windowsill" Page 237
When I hear "Company" ~ I do ~indeed~ hear those teardrops fall.
"Last Chance Texaco~Chronicles Of An American Troubadour" is a memoir that simply tears at your heart. She lays bare a lot of the pain she endured and moments she has lived through. And she shares so much of her adventures as a teenager, out on the road, going to concerts, managing her way up & down the West Coast. Just Amazing.
She writes of her family life, and of the musicians & entertainers along her bloodlines that came before her.
She writes of her first lp & how that was a whirlwind.
She REMINDS us that she ~Rickie Lee Jones~created the FIRST music video.
Yes.......she did that.
She writes about SNL & how Coolsville WAS going to be sung, no matter what & of course, it was.
As a fan, I felt that I was there with her, I kept recalling to myself what I was doing as she was writing about her career trajectory.
She never gave up. I never stopped being a fan.
She does not speak, in depth, of Mr. Waits until page 320.
He is mentioned here & there, but only in passing until then.
It is heartbreaking to read her words of his exit.
It is unfathomable to me~that still he refuses to speak to her. I remember reading an interview where she says she ran into him at a benefit, DECADES later & he refused to speak to her.
That pain is still there.
She writes of the time at Chasens, after the Grammys (Dylan Fans will know about this moment, as it is captured in a neat Getty photograph) where Bob Dylan tells her "Don't ever quit. You are a real poet."
And how Russ Titleman was beside himself, in fan boy glory, giggling
"Bob Dylan just called you a real poet".
This book has so many moments like this.
Rickie Lee Jones has been around so many of our musical hero's.
She is one of them.
She REMAINS one of them.
This book is such a great read.
I am so over the moon, that she gave this to us.
I, initially, took it took it to work & after my lunch walk, I would sit down & read for 45 minutes or so.
But this week, as I neared the last 60 pages, I ended up staying up late to complete the read.
It is just SUCH a good book.
There are so many photos of her, and each one is like one more gift to her fans.
I adore this woman & cannot recommend this book enough.
READ this BOOK !!!
December 29, 2020
Just shy of 5 stars. This recollection by Rickie Lee Jones had be recollecting my own life because Rickie Lee was a part of my new-to-adultness. I just didn't know how long she had been adulting when I met her music. More than any other book about a musician, I needed to listen to her music while I read. And, the emotion and the desperate-ness of trying to get it right was felt. It was there. I learned more about this Troubadour of a jazz singer stuck in a disco time. And, I heard her again. Maybe there should be 5 stars. She is a lyricist, after all. (changing to 5 stars). Thank you netgalley.com for the advanced copy for a fair and unbiased review.
May 8, 2021
A five star book for RLJ fans and probably 3.5 for those who are unfamiliar with her. Her life is quirk as her voice and especially so if listen to the audio version read Rickie, herself.
October 18, 2021
“Last Chance Texaco” is Jones’ autobiography, written with candor and lyrical grace. In it, she shows off her talents as a writer, focusing far more on her childhood and teenage hippie runaway years than in setting forth the details of her world tours or the difficulties of making each album as so many rock biographies do. This was clearly a deliberate choice on Jones’ part and it is what makes this book so interesting. Jones is not known for many chart hits, but it is not about the billboard charts, so those not entirely familiar with her body of work can open this book and enjoy as much as those more familiar with her lyrics and voice. She poetically explains the title of the book as that last station you see before you run out of gas and that it is “the light in the distance that never goes out, refuge for the tired traveler on a dark road.” She states that, when her young life “seemed to be nose-diving into the desert sands of Hollywood, going nowhere fast, [she] raised that Texaco star like a pirate flag.”
She begins her story by telling about her family, her mother, particularly, who grew up an orphan. Her mother’s escapades in the orphanage were like Grimm’s fairy tales, but no trolls or dragons could compete with the horrors. In her childhood, Jones lived in the harsh lands surrounding Phoenix, wandering the neighborhood with her invisible friends, “often frozen in some daydream when an invisible horse galloped down the street in a storm of wild fury, only to find [her] waiting and fearless.” She tells how she spent recess at school galloping past the other children until they all joined in. Her memories of her childhood are incredibly detailed and vivid such as the time she found a family of garter snakes under the house, watching “them the way children watch tattooed ladies at the circus, with a mixture of fear and delight.” What is remarkable is how well she recalls the small joys of childhood and invests them with so much emotion such as that each day was followed by a brighter sun set in a blaze of celestial colored sunsets that were erased by bigger and bigger full moons.”
But, do not mistake her childhood for one of privilege. The family moved like gypsies from Arizona to Chicago to the California coast, following jobs and dreams. Her father was often absent. Her mother moody: “To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves.” The family had little money and there were strangers in cars enticing children with fake puppies and strange men peering in the windows, frightening the family.
One of themes of the story is luck and fate and how “[t]he biggest things in life often do not announce themselves, and warnings seem to only be audible in retrospect.” Also, her world was haunted by ghosts. Her brother’s crippling accident was one such moment of fate. But she explains that it was not just her brother who seemed taped together, but they were all broken, torn, and taped together and her family life “was something like a nuclear submarine waiting for the signal to destroy all known life.”
Her adolescence coexisted with the birth of rock and roll and hippie-world and much of her teenage years from fourteen years of age on were spent joyriding across state lines in stolen cars and living in caves in Big Sur with hippie communes, getting stoned and having sex. Up and down the coast she went with direction home, getting into one jam after another with little to lean on. Being a young hippie girl meant being used and abused by others often and beneath the painted rainbows and daisies, hippie life was not always joyful and often meant just being on the run.
These years formed much of the book and the successive years of record contracts and performing make up the tail end of the book and are in some ways not as poetic as the early childhood years and not as scary and on the edge as the teenage hippie years. It is a fascinating and candid autobiography with no attempt to sugar coat her life.
She begins her story by telling about her family, her mother, particularly, who grew up an orphan. Her mother’s escapades in the orphanage were like Grimm’s fairy tales, but no trolls or dragons could compete with the horrors. In her childhood, Jones lived in the harsh lands surrounding Phoenix, wandering the neighborhood with her invisible friends, “often frozen in some daydream when an invisible horse galloped down the street in a storm of wild fury, only to find [her] waiting and fearless.” She tells how she spent recess at school galloping past the other children until they all joined in. Her memories of her childhood are incredibly detailed and vivid such as the time she found a family of garter snakes under the house, watching “them the way children watch tattooed ladies at the circus, with a mixture of fear and delight.” What is remarkable is how well she recalls the small joys of childhood and invests them with so much emotion such as that each day was followed by a brighter sun set in a blaze of celestial colored sunsets that were erased by bigger and bigger full moons.”
But, do not mistake her childhood for one of privilege. The family moved like gypsies from Arizona to Chicago to the California coast, following jobs and dreams. Her father was often absent. Her mother moody: “To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves.” The family had little money and there were strangers in cars enticing children with fake puppies and strange men peering in the windows, frightening the family.
One of themes of the story is luck and fate and how “[t]he biggest things in life often do not announce themselves, and warnings seem to only be audible in retrospect.” Also, her world was haunted by ghosts. Her brother’s crippling accident was one such moment of fate. But she explains that it was not just her brother who seemed taped together, but they were all broken, torn, and taped together and her family life “was something like a nuclear submarine waiting for the signal to destroy all known life.”
Her adolescence coexisted with the birth of rock and roll and hippie-world and much of her teenage years from fourteen years of age on were spent joyriding across state lines in stolen cars and living in caves in Big Sur with hippie communes, getting stoned and having sex. Up and down the coast she went with direction home, getting into one jam after another with little to lean on. Being a young hippie girl meant being used and abused by others often and beneath the painted rainbows and daisies, hippie life was not always joyful and often meant just being on the run.
These years formed much of the book and the successive years of record contracts and performing make up the tail end of the book and are in some ways not as poetic as the early childhood years and not as scary and on the edge as the teenage hippie years. It is a fascinating and candid autobiography with no attempt to sugar coat her life.
February 28, 2021
Reading this memoir was like taking a long drive down Highway 101 in California with a lover - not the long-term kind though, the May-to-December type. The words on paper are much like her songs, wistful and dreamy and very tangential.
Much of her upbringing was unknown to me until I read this. Rickie Lee came from a long line of hardscrabble folks with their fare share of poverty, heartbreak and triumphs too.
Her life with Tom Waits and others was as you could imagine and fascinating for music-lovers to absorb and live through her vicariously.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC - it was a delight for dreary days (and all others too).
Much of her upbringing was unknown to me until I read this. Rickie Lee came from a long line of hardscrabble folks with their fare share of poverty, heartbreak and triumphs too.
Her life with Tom Waits and others was as you could imagine and fascinating for music-lovers to absorb and live through her vicariously.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC - it was a delight for dreary days (and all others too).
April 12, 2022
In this memoir Rickie Lee Jones writes of her roots, her life as a runaway and her struggle to create a career as a singer songwriter. She breezes through the last 30 years which include her stardom, her marriage, her daughter and an update on her family.
Going back and forth in time you learn about her childhood and the struggles of her parents. She gives the sad back story of each so you understand them. While her father had only an 8th grade education, he had musical talent as did his parents who were vaudeville performers. Her mother was an orphan who experiences sadistic care givers in both an orphanage and foster care.
Rickie Lee’s parents made bad decisions for themselves and for her. At least as a runaway, she would not be vulnerable to their bad choices, her father’s violence, her mother’s sporadic rejection, a resentful older sister and a brother who required care and seemed ungrateful for her attempts to help him. There are breaks when the family is not impoverished but they do not last long. Moving is constant. Rickie often attends 3 schools in one year. Her childhood hung like an albatross through her personal and professional life.
There are some great B & W photos of the her parents and past generations.
There is a lot about her life as an underage hippie in California: hitchhiking, friends, scams pulled by hippies and some pulled on them, group living situations etc. There are life threatening situations and the kindness of strangers (a snow plow operator, a pimp, a police officer, etc.). There are a few times she calls her mother who somehow has the resources to send her a plane ticket home – and given all the moving, I was surprised there was a home to go to.
She describes her fledgling career, how she met people, got gigs, worked cooperatively, was disappointed in others and met people who helped. The breakthrough came at age 22 with “Chuck E’s in Love”. There is a lot on performances, touring, romances (she lets him off easy, but Tom Waits is an insensitive cad towards women, even those he professes to love) and “the snake” (heroin) in her “Garden of Eden”.
The story essentially ends around 1980. She speeds through the rest: marriage, a daughter, connections with family, her albums and awards. Plenty of material remains for a volume 2.
Jones’s experience of life is unique as is her writing style. You can fly along with her for over 500 pages which never let up in surprises. If you are interested in Rickie Lee Jones, (or hippie life and the CA music scene in the 1960;s & 70’s) you will want to read this book.
Going back and forth in time you learn about her childhood and the struggles of her parents. She gives the sad back story of each so you understand them. While her father had only an 8th grade education, he had musical talent as did his parents who were vaudeville performers. Her mother was an orphan who experiences sadistic care givers in both an orphanage and foster care.
Rickie Lee’s parents made bad decisions for themselves and for her. At least as a runaway, she would not be vulnerable to their bad choices, her father’s violence, her mother’s sporadic rejection, a resentful older sister and a brother who required care and seemed ungrateful for her attempts to help him. There are breaks when the family is not impoverished but they do not last long. Moving is constant. Rickie often attends 3 schools in one year. Her childhood hung like an albatross through her personal and professional life.
There are some great B & W photos of the her parents and past generations.
There is a lot about her life as an underage hippie in California: hitchhiking, friends, scams pulled by hippies and some pulled on them, group living situations etc. There are life threatening situations and the kindness of strangers (a snow plow operator, a pimp, a police officer, etc.). There are a few times she calls her mother who somehow has the resources to send her a plane ticket home – and given all the moving, I was surprised there was a home to go to.
She describes her fledgling career, how she met people, got gigs, worked cooperatively, was disappointed in others and met people who helped. The breakthrough came at age 22 with “Chuck E’s in Love”. There is a lot on performances, touring, romances (she lets him off easy, but Tom Waits is an insensitive cad towards women, even those he professes to love) and “the snake” (heroin) in her “Garden of Eden”.
The story essentially ends around 1980. She speeds through the rest: marriage, a daughter, connections with family, her albums and awards. Plenty of material remains for a volume 2.
Jones’s experience of life is unique as is her writing style. You can fly along with her for over 500 pages which never let up in surprises. If you are interested in Rickie Lee Jones, (or hippie life and the CA music scene in the 1960;s & 70’s) you will want to read this book.
December 8, 2020
Last Chance Texaco from Rickie Lee Jones is an insightful and entertaining read, though I admit to being a big fan so might be a little biased. That said, I think anyone interested in music and/or autobiography will enjoy this book.
There is, of course, all of the stories we would expect. People in the music industry, places and events that we might have heard a little about. In that respect Jones delivers what should please readers primarily interested in those aspects of her life. I was more impressed, and found every bit as interesting, the story of her youth and childhood.
In many autobiographies (and memoirs to an extent) we get some childhood stories the person feels either helps explain who they are presenting themselves to be or are especially unusual. Here we get to watch her grow up, we see her grapple with moves, fitting in, finding herself (perhaps more than once). This is the part of the book where most people can find things to relate to. I moved a lot, I rebelled early and often, I walked a fine line between introvert and wanting to be accepted. I appreciated that a fair portion of the book let me know how Jones grew up, even down to the pranks like ringing doorbells and running away, or at least planning to run away.
The voice throughout is almost conversational, which I find appealing in a memoir or autobiography. It feels like she is sitting across from me and telling me her life story (I should be so lucky!). This has been a ray of sunshine during an otherwise dark period of time and I can't thank her enough for it.
I highly recommend this to not only music fans and fans of Jones but also to those who simply enjoy reading biography and autobiography. This is as much a slice of history of the period as it is the story of a phenomenal artist's life (did I mention I am a big fan?).
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
There is, of course, all of the stories we would expect. People in the music industry, places and events that we might have heard a little about. In that respect Jones delivers what should please readers primarily interested in those aspects of her life. I was more impressed, and found every bit as interesting, the story of her youth and childhood.
In many autobiographies (and memoirs to an extent) we get some childhood stories the person feels either helps explain who they are presenting themselves to be or are especially unusual. Here we get to watch her grow up, we see her grapple with moves, fitting in, finding herself (perhaps more than once). This is the part of the book where most people can find things to relate to. I moved a lot, I rebelled early and often, I walked a fine line between introvert and wanting to be accepted. I appreciated that a fair portion of the book let me know how Jones grew up, even down to the pranks like ringing doorbells and running away, or at least planning to run away.
The voice throughout is almost conversational, which I find appealing in a memoir or autobiography. It feels like she is sitting across from me and telling me her life story (I should be so lucky!). This has been a ray of sunshine during an otherwise dark period of time and I can't thank her enough for it.
I highly recommend this to not only music fans and fans of Jones but also to those who simply enjoy reading biography and autobiography. This is as much a slice of history of the period as it is the story of a phenomenal artist's life (did I mention I am a big fan?).
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
April 23, 2021
My deepest emotions are universal; the further inside myself I go, the closer I am to mankind. When I sing, you can hear your own teardrops falling on my windowsill.
When she writes, too. I couldn't put down this memoir, even though I often wanted to because it made me feel so sad in places (the entire first third, actually) and so engulfed in the feeling of being totally lost in this world (the next third). I read it before rising, during work breaks, during meals, eagerly letting Rickie Lee Jones carry me on a road trip from a childhood no one should ever have endured, through years of drifting across American back roads and dead ends and even caves, and finally summoning her spirit toward music. The emphasis is on the paths she traveled, with her success coming way at the end, and the bulk of her career quickly ridden past in summary--which is exactly what I wanted. When I read artist memoirs, I'm more interested in how they got there rather than recaps of what they did while in the public eye. The prose ranges from spare to poetic, very much like her lyrics, baring her being and her history to the world.
I sometimes had her album Naked Songs playing in the background as I read. Lyrics often popped out like beacons in sync with the text.
Even if you're not familiar with Rickie Lee Jones's music, this memoir is a moving read of a lost and tormented soul who summoned the courage to save herself.
May 4, 2021
This two-star rating is because I did not care for the book/story. I do not like to dump on someone’s life stories and experience. I will take apart a biography if I feel it needs it! 😊
I really didn’t know much about Rickie Lee Jones other than her one song ‘Chuck E’s In Love’.
Maybe someone closer to her age or a big fan will get more out of this. It felt a disjointed to me and I was unable to connect with her story.
I really didn’t know much about Rickie Lee Jones other than her one song ‘Chuck E’s In Love’.
Maybe someone closer to her age or a big fan will get more out of this. It felt a disjointed to me and I was unable to connect with her story.
January 3, 2021
I've never listened to Rickie Lee Jones's music, so, what drew me in with this book? Her celebrity friends and lovers? Finding out about her life and music more?
Neither. It's her writing that drew me in. Check this out:
There's something beautiful about somebody writing in a near-dream state. It's open and fun and you connect with somebody writing about what it's like to be a young adult on the cusp of losing your childhood more than you feel comfortable with, while wanting your independence.
Still, there's a lot of stories from Jones's adolescense, and this book travels chronologically.
Another paragraph:
Some of the best stories are from Jones's girlhood, when she writes about everything mundane to deeply traumatical.
Her later years, finding music via The Beatles, getting involved with Dr. John, starting to write her own music, getting into the music business, making an album, meeting and getting romantically entangled with Tom Waits, are interesting, but to me not as interesting as her initial years.
Sadly, my interest in the book waned after the initial strides that Jones took. The rhythm of the book took a far less strong path after a third and I wish she'd have maintained it.
For me, again, somebody who's not heard Jones's music, it's not a strong story, but the start is interesting, almost touching on Faulkner. If you're looking for a much stronger writer where it comes to music, I suggest you try Patti Smith or Lester Bangs.
Neither. It's her writing that drew me in. Check this out:
When I was twenty-three years old I drove around L.A. with Tom Waits. We’d cruise along Highway 1 in his new 1963 Thunderbird. With my blonde hair flying out the window and both of us sweating in the summer sun, the alcohol seeped from our pores and the sex smell still soaked our clothes and our hair. We liked our smell. We did not bathe as often as we might have. We were in love and I for one was not interested in washing any of that off. By the end of summer we were exchanging song ideas. We were also exchanging something deeper. Each other.
There's something beautiful about somebody writing in a near-dream state. It's open and fun and you connect with somebody writing about what it's like to be a young adult on the cusp of losing your childhood more than you feel comfortable with, while wanting your independence.
Still, there's a lot of stories from Jones's adolescense, and this book travels chronologically.
Coming home from visiting Good Shepherd, my mother sometimes whipped out a warning out of nowhere. “Don’t you ever be like your sister. Do you hear me? Don’t you grow up to be like Janet.” Every time she said this to me I was devastated. I was nothing like my sister. I was me. Didn’t she even know me? It was a seed of doubt inadvertently planted by my mother. I began to wonder if I was adopted, and so began the year known as, “Was I adopted?” Each week I’d ask a family member, “Seriously, was I adopted?” Finally Danny said, “Yes, you were adopted. Go away.” Nothing they could say could make me stop doubting my place in our family.
Another paragraph:
To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves.
Some of the best stories are from Jones's girlhood, when she writes about everything mundane to deeply traumatical.
Sugarfoot was my pet cat but also my surrogate mama and best friend. For the last five years I came to pet her quietly when life was too hard to bear. When she was thirsty she drank out of the next-door neighbor’s pool. He did not like our cat drinking from his pool. My mother found Sugarfoot dead while I was at school one day. I came home and she said, “I think your cat is sick. She may be dead Rickie. She’s lying there in the garden.” I did not believe her. Not Sugarfoot! Not dead! I had to see for myself.
There was Sugarfoot lying in the garden where she always liked to sleep, but when I bent over to pick her up she was stiff and her fur was covered with green vomit. I picked her up gently, wiped off the vomit, and rocking her body in my arms, I cried. God, not again, don’t take her from me too. It wasn’t God who had done this, it was the next-door neighbor, a man who saw us every day with our wheelchaired teenager, struggling to have some kind of normal life. A man who passed our broken-hearted house every day, he poisoned Sugarfoot. A monster lived next door. I still don’t know how he managed it, but Danny dug the hole. He had always buried our pets and the continuity of this burial task was important to all of us. We buried Sugarfoot in the garden, right where she died. I sat there with her as long as I could, singing and crying.
Her later years, finding music via The Beatles, getting involved with Dr. John, starting to write her own music, getting into the music business, making an album, meeting and getting romantically entangled with Tom Waits, are interesting, but to me not as interesting as her initial years.
Sadly, my interest in the book waned after the initial strides that Jones took. The rhythm of the book took a far less strong path after a third and I wish she'd have maintained it.
For me, again, somebody who's not heard Jones's music, it's not a strong story, but the start is interesting, almost touching on Faulkner. If you're looking for a much stronger writer where it comes to music, I suggest you try Patti Smith or Lester Bangs.
May 17, 2021
I hugged this book tightly to my chest upon finishing it, the tears running down my face. There are no accidents in this life. I was meant to discover Rickie Lee Jones' music in 1979 when she lived a few blocks from me in Santa Monica, unbeknownst to me at the time. I was meant to learn that we are the exact same age, give or take a few months. I was meant to learn that my brother met her when he was a recording engineer in L.A. I was meant to learn that she answered the philosophical questions I am grappling with now in the last few pages of this incredible memoir. Rickie Lee Jones was meant to write this book.
Rickie Lee Jones writes like she sings. She can take the most gut-wrenching moment in the human experience and slather it with buttery soul. I had to read and re-read passages to make sure I had read them correctly because her presentation was soft, sultry, kind, considerate, even though I wanted to die a little bit inside for her. When Rickie was a 14-year-old deciding on how to get her next meal on the road as a runaway, I was dishing with my friends about a crush on a boy. Yet, her writing makes you feel like you know her, like you have always known her. As for her dysfunctional family, it is one for the movies-- unbelievable, over-the-top, dramatic, cinematic-- yet, so much love, so much loyalty, so much history. Rickie reminds us all that there are no guarantees in this life, even when we seemingly have it all. Once the dust settles, all that is left is love.
Rickie presents her story in two phases-- her growing up years; her musical years. I don't think we can fully understand Rickie without knowing about her early life, her music is her early life. Reading her book made me wonder about a girl I met in 8th grade who could have been Rickie, only she wasn't. Her name was Jeri. She was a product of a drug addicted lifestyle in Hollywood. No one would talk to her because she was one of the "freaks" especially in conservative Orange County, California. I was fascinated by her. I talked to her everyday and found her to be like reading a magical book. I knew she would either be famous or dead at an early age because she believed in the allure of drugs. She found me on my high school campus to thank me for being so nice to her and to tell me that she had hitchhiked up the coast of California with my brother. Rickie Lee Jones often hitchhiked up and down the coast of California at the exact same time. Maybe she knew Jeri. I'm glad Rickie Lee Jones made it. I hope Jeri did too. I became a teacher of at-risk children for 36 years because of her. The greatest joy of my life. And now I write about these fabulous children.
I lived Rickie Lee Jones' journey with her, knowing that whatever came next, she would pull through with the strength of her ancestors and parents. I believe in that atavistic strength and use it in my own life. When you live long enough, and believe in that power, it is there if you know how to access it. Rickie always believed in her talent and she waited patiently for it to manifest when she knew it would. Empathic people often let their emotions get the best of them, and may take dangerous detours into the realm of bad relationships and bad drugs, but their big hearts and generosity act as checkpoints for an eventual return to sanity. I love that Rickie always returned to her sanity to take her back home. It is not up to me in this review to write about Rickie's life events. It is up to you to read them for yourselves. She is a much better storyteller.
If you read only one memoir this year, choose "Last Chance Texaco." There is something in it for everyone.
Rickie Lee Jones writes like she sings. She can take the most gut-wrenching moment in the human experience and slather it with buttery soul. I had to read and re-read passages to make sure I had read them correctly because her presentation was soft, sultry, kind, considerate, even though I wanted to die a little bit inside for her. When Rickie was a 14-year-old deciding on how to get her next meal on the road as a runaway, I was dishing with my friends about a crush on a boy. Yet, her writing makes you feel like you know her, like you have always known her. As for her dysfunctional family, it is one for the movies-- unbelievable, over-the-top, dramatic, cinematic-- yet, so much love, so much loyalty, so much history. Rickie reminds us all that there are no guarantees in this life, even when we seemingly have it all. Once the dust settles, all that is left is love.
Rickie presents her story in two phases-- her growing up years; her musical years. I don't think we can fully understand Rickie without knowing about her early life, her music is her early life. Reading her book made me wonder about a girl I met in 8th grade who could have been Rickie, only she wasn't. Her name was Jeri. She was a product of a drug addicted lifestyle in Hollywood. No one would talk to her because she was one of the "freaks" especially in conservative Orange County, California. I was fascinated by her. I talked to her everyday and found her to be like reading a magical book. I knew she would either be famous or dead at an early age because she believed in the allure of drugs. She found me on my high school campus to thank me for being so nice to her and to tell me that she had hitchhiked up the coast of California with my brother. Rickie Lee Jones often hitchhiked up and down the coast of California at the exact same time. Maybe she knew Jeri. I'm glad Rickie Lee Jones made it. I hope Jeri did too. I became a teacher of at-risk children for 36 years because of her. The greatest joy of my life. And now I write about these fabulous children.
I lived Rickie Lee Jones' journey with her, knowing that whatever came next, she would pull through with the strength of her ancestors and parents. I believe in that atavistic strength and use it in my own life. When you live long enough, and believe in that power, it is there if you know how to access it. Rickie always believed in her talent and she waited patiently for it to manifest when she knew it would. Empathic people often let their emotions get the best of them, and may take dangerous detours into the realm of bad relationships and bad drugs, but their big hearts and generosity act as checkpoints for an eventual return to sanity. I love that Rickie always returned to her sanity to take her back home. It is not up to me in this review to write about Rickie's life events. It is up to you to read them for yourselves. She is a much better storyteller.
If you read only one memoir this year, choose "Last Chance Texaco." There is something in it for everyone.
January 13, 2023
This was the final book I finished in 2022. (After finishing it, I fell into a state of exhaustion concerning reading. Though I am proud of myself for reading 160 books last year, it was a daunting challenge. I took a break for about a week, reading only some poetry and short stories. Now I am back to it but not putting a quantity of books to my 2023 reading plan, just reading. Because it is true that usually all I do is read.)
Last Chance Texaco is the memoir of another creative woman, a musician and songwriter who is still alive and performing today. Rickie Lee was born in 1954 and so is a generation beyond those other two creatives I read about in the previous two books: Marilyn Monroe and Anne Sexton. Movies, poetry and music!
Rickie Lee did not have an easier childhood than Marilyn or Anne, but she came of age in the 1960s and embraced the free ranging lifestyle that many of us did in that decade. She was much braver than I was though I was no less foolish and reckless. She ran away from home, had numerous relationships with men, and finally turned her love of music into a viable career.
She used her huge talent to break out of her troubles, she overcame her family issues and addiction, as she took her place in a world that was waking up to more freedom for many. I could hear her lyrical style, her improvisational jazzy musical style, in her writing of this memoir.
All three women suffered for being female and for inheriting the insanities of their families, but each one created an enduring legacy. This was a wonderful book to end my year of intense reading!
Last Chance Texaco is the memoir of another creative woman, a musician and songwriter who is still alive and performing today. Rickie Lee was born in 1954 and so is a generation beyond those other two creatives I read about in the previous two books: Marilyn Monroe and Anne Sexton. Movies, poetry and music!
Rickie Lee did not have an easier childhood than Marilyn or Anne, but she came of age in the 1960s and embraced the free ranging lifestyle that many of us did in that decade. She was much braver than I was though I was no less foolish and reckless. She ran away from home, had numerous relationships with men, and finally turned her love of music into a viable career.
She used her huge talent to break out of her troubles, she overcame her family issues and addiction, as she took her place in a world that was waking up to more freedom for many. I could hear her lyrical style, her improvisational jazzy musical style, in her writing of this memoir.
All three women suffered for being female and for inheriting the insanities of their families, but each one created an enduring legacy. This was a wonderful book to end my year of intense reading!
September 18, 2021
I have listened to Rickie Lee Jones for years since her debut i love her beat poetic persona and her heartbreaking songs. I know all the words of the first two albums. I also know all the songs from West Side Story. I have seen her perform twice as a young musician and as an older woman.we are the same age- her life was wild and unsettled and that did not change for many years. Fame brought some happiness and then heroin helped her cope with the rest of life. I admire her toughness and all the bruising she took from men and the press must have been hard on her heart. but she still sings and rides the horses.
September 25, 2022
Man O' Man, what a powerful autobiography.
I have always liked her music and her voice.
She is truly amazing! Her life, up to a point, was one tragedy to another.
She moved all over the US and that kept her off balance in her early years. She knew she wanted to be either a songwriter, a jazz singer, or a singer-songwriter.
She struggled with drugs after her breakthrough as a jazz singer and songwriter. She tried it once and then years later it called her back.
She is honest about all of the men in her life and her struggles with these relationships. Tom Waits, seemed to be her true love, but her heroin addiction, which she hide from Tom, was the last straw for him.
She had to hit rock bottom before she was able to get her career back on track.
Overall, a great listen, and her reading to you makes it even better.
Thank you Ms. Jones for sharing with us.
I have always liked her music and her voice.
She is truly amazing! Her life, up to a point, was one tragedy to another.
She moved all over the US and that kept her off balance in her early years. She knew she wanted to be either a songwriter, a jazz singer, or a singer-songwriter.
She struggled with drugs after her breakthrough as a jazz singer and songwriter. She tried it once and then years later it called her back.
She is honest about all of the men in her life and her struggles with these relationships. Tom Waits, seemed to be her true love, but her heroin addiction, which she hide from Tom, was the last straw for him.
She had to hit rock bottom before she was able to get her career back on track.
Overall, a great listen, and her reading to you makes it even better.
Thank you Ms. Jones for sharing with us.
April 10, 2021
I read this in advance of an interview with Rickie Lee Jones but I'd have loved it had I just picked it up on my own. Her voice here is as unique as it is in such songs as the classic breakthrough hit "Chuck E.'s In Love" or "Coolsville" or the song that provides the title of the book. It far outstrips most musician memoirs, telling a story that's not just about the music she made, but about the family from which she came, and the people she met on the road in her journey to becoming a star. Put on her debut album, or "Pirates," and read this book, you won't regret it.
Here's my interview with RLJ: https://www.ocregister.com/2021/04/06...
Here's my interview with RLJ: https://www.ocregister.com/2021/04/06...
October 28, 2021
I was really torn in how to rate this book. The writing is really erratic. When it's good it's really good. And when it's not... it's kind of ramble-y and redundant. If you're a RLJ fan, it's likely worth a read to travel the path she took to stardom.
At first I was debating between 3 stars and 4. Then I found an ill-mannered comment from presumably the author herself on another 2 star post: [comment from username Rickie L Jones] 'you are an IDIOT. you are. the one who is whining. can you just not degrade the stars - with fans like you who needs enemies. oh- and you spell hate with one t.'
Either RLJ needs to get Goodreads to get rid of an imposter user, or she needs a publicist to manage her accounts. Really hoping it's the former.
At first I was debating between 3 stars and 4. Then I found an ill-mannered comment from presumably the author herself on another 2 star post: [comment from username Rickie L Jones] 'you are an IDIOT. you are. the one who is whining. can you just not degrade the stars - with fans like you who needs enemies. oh- and you spell hate with one t.'
Either RLJ needs to get Goodreads to get rid of an imposter user, or she needs a publicist to manage her accounts. Really hoping it's the former.
September 8, 2024
What a weird damn book. This is one seriously messed up burnt out chick. It’s the most disjointed memoir I think I’ve ever read. I can’t even describe how odd her thought process is. A boring depressing screwed up book.
Definitely a book to skim through because there’s not much coherent here. I don't know much of her music but some of which I am familiar with I do like the quirkiness of it. Do not waste your money on this.
Definitely a book to skim through because there’s not much coherent here. I don't know much of her music but some of which I am familiar with I do like the quirkiness of it. Do not waste your money on this.
March 22, 2021
I loved reading this. I didn't expect to, even though I'm a fan. Celebrity memoirs often disappoint, especially when half the book focuses on their childhood. But Rickie Lee Jones' writing captivated me immediately, which shouldn't have surprised me – Pirates got me through college, after all. It remains in my Top Five albums. (Just so you know, I was a freshman when it came out!)
I especially enjoyed reading about her musical influences and writing processes. I related to this sentence about her relationship with Laura Nyro's music: "Somehow, the moment I fell in love with Laura I loved myself just a little more." That's how I felt about the women musicians I listened to on repeat as young woman, like Joni Mitchell (Blue) and Rickie Lee herself, but never had put into words so succinctly and eloquently.
The book is a mostly chronological autobiography, somewhat less linear as she moves through her life, drawing connections between past and present and memories, with more detail about RLJ's early years. I'm biased enough of a fan so I can't predict whether those unfamiliar with her work would enjoy as much as I did, but the writing and story are engaging enough that I hope they'll give it a shot. It'll surely make you want to listen to her music!
Thanks to NetGalley for ARC.
#LastChanceTexaco #NetGalley
I especially enjoyed reading about her musical influences and writing processes. I related to this sentence about her relationship with Laura Nyro's music: "Somehow, the moment I fell in love with Laura I loved myself just a little more." That's how I felt about the women musicians I listened to on repeat as young woman, like Joni Mitchell (Blue) and Rickie Lee herself, but never had put into words so succinctly and eloquently.
The book is a mostly chronological autobiography, somewhat less linear as she moves through her life, drawing connections between past and present and memories, with more detail about RLJ's early years. I'm biased enough of a fan so I can't predict whether those unfamiliar with her work would enjoy as much as I did, but the writing and story are engaging enough that I hope they'll give it a shot. It'll surely make you want to listen to her music!
Thanks to NetGalley for ARC.
#LastChanceTexaco #NetGalley
April 29, 2021
The book is 353 pages and wasn't until page 225 that she writes about any musical endeavors, such as picking up a guitar (19 years old I think) or singing accompaniment in a small night club. Her only mention of her love or passion towards music in her earlier years was her story of auditioning for the High School Choir and being turned down. The teacher didn't think her voice was a good fit. She spends way too many pages writing about her pre-teen and teen years running away from home and having experiences living off and hitchhiking with freeloaders up and down California and Oregon. And they weren't exciting experiences, fairly boring. There were lots of situations in her music career she could elaborated on and would have been more interesting. Too much time was spent hanging out and getting high with Tom Waits, Lowell George, Dr. John and doing not so much. She recorded 12 albums, yet she only wrote about the first three and ended her book around age 33. A number of her later albums were Jazz and included her talented writing and singing. She could have used a writer to help her sort her experiences, maybe helped to draw her out, and what would be interesting to the reader. She obviously did not have a good editor but then you have to have some material to work with I guess. But she sure can write music and I will continue to enjoy her records.
February 6, 2022
Rickie Lee Jones has lived a hard life. And I certainly empathize with some of the struggles that she’s faced in her indisputably varied lifetime so far. The biggest issue I have with Ms. Jones’ autobiography is that she simply comes across as immature & lacking in self awareness and self reflection. This is despite the flowery, poetic, rambling spin Rickie puts on all of her tales. I feel badly because it’s very clear that Ms. Jones, unsurprisingly, still has issues. I have not wanted a book to end so badly as this in decades of reading. I just can not recommend this.
May 8, 2021
This autobiography is a deeply thoughtful and poetic dive into the life of one of our greatest rock singers and an iconic musician. It's impossible to place a style on Rickie Lee Jones, and her memoir makes one understand just what makes her so unique. She had a turbulent, peripatetic childhood that finished when she ran off and took to the road at 14. It was hippie time, and she headed for California, encountering a mind-boggling array of characters, dangers, and experiences. She was truly down and out in those early years, slowly finding her voice. Jones also delves into her parents' upbringing, each traumatic in their own way and each bringing their destructive power into her life.
A turning point in music for Jones came when she discovered Laura Nyro. That revelation made a great deal of sense to me, as both certainly broke new ground, had a unique style of music and persona, neither could read music but intuitively heard the notes and wrote astonishingly new lyrics and melodies, and both were never completely understood nor embraced by the general public.
Jones can legitimately name-drop the greats of rock. Tom Waits fans will devour the stories of their time together. What is made very clear by Jones, however, is that she influenced him, and not the other way around, which has been the common wisdom. Her strange encounter with Van Morrison is tantalizing. And she so vividly describes viewing one of Jim Hendrix's last performances that the reader can begin to comprehend just how prodigious and charismatic he was as a musician. Jones sets quite a few things straight here - at least from her perspective. She is forthright about her tenacious character and strong independence, and how this has worked for her and against her throughout her fascinating life.
This is a totally absorbing memoir, not to be missed by rock music fans.
January 10, 2022
I was on to Rickie Lee right from day one. I, like probably most people, drifted away after a few albums.
Full disclosure, if you're looking for an album-by-album book, this is not the one. Of the 355 pages, the first 277 lead up to the recording of the first iconic album. You get less than 80 pages of her actual recording career. But. . .that's okay.
Through the book, she scatters her story and her loves, chief among them, Tom Waits. She goes into detail about her time with Dr. John and how his music affected her - she now lives in New Orleans so there's that.
Rickie's style is confessional/factual and, to be honest, I could have used another one hundred pages about the rest of her career.
Rickie Lee. . .always interesting music and a very interesting read.
Full disclosure, if you're looking for an album-by-album book, this is not the one. Of the 355 pages, the first 277 lead up to the recording of the first iconic album. You get less than 80 pages of her actual recording career. But. . .that's okay.
Through the book, she scatters her story and her loves, chief among them, Tom Waits. She goes into detail about her time with Dr. John and how his music affected her - she now lives in New Orleans so there's that.
Rickie's style is confessional/factual and, to be honest, I could have used another one hundred pages about the rest of her career.
Rickie Lee. . .always interesting music and a very interesting read.
May 30, 2024
It was good but kinda gave manic pixie dream girl the way she clearly thinks she is *special* and that’s why deserves to be famous lol
Famous people are just people who got lucky! There are talented people everywhere
Famous people are just people who got lucky! There are talented people everywhere
April 14, 2021
“This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song.”
Whether or not you are a fan of her music - or even know who Rickie Lee Jones is- this is a wonderful read.
Whether or not you are a fan of her music - or even know who Rickie Lee Jones is- this is a wonderful read.
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