Rickie Lee Jones
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Born in Chicago, she grew up in a family she has described as "lower-middle-class-hillbilly-hipster" in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Arizona, and Olympia, Washington. She settled in L.A. when she was nineteen, where she waited tables and played at local clubs. A 1979 contract with Warner Brothers Records resulted in her first, self-titled album. Commercially and critically well-received, it included a hit single, "Chuck E's in Love", and won her the Best New Artist Grammy award along with five other nominations.
She was featured twice in two years (1979-1980) on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and appeared four times as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live between 1979 and 1989. Since her debut, Jones has released several albums, none as successful as the first, though she won another Grammy (and two other nominations) for a cover of "Makin' Whoopee" with Dr. John.
Jones has one daughter from her marriage with French musician Pascal Nabet Meyer.
She is the organizer of the web community "Furniture for the People", which is involved in gardening, social activism, bootleg exchange and left wing politics. She hosts a weekly talk radio on KAOS (Evergreen State College radio) in Olympia, Washington. She has produced records (including Leo Kottke's Peculiaroso), and provided a voiceover for a 1980s cartoon version of Pinocchio, in which she played the Blue Fairy.
She recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the film Friends With Money (2006), Circle In the Sand and Hillbilly Song.
Discography
- Rickie Lee Jones - (1979)
- Pirates - (1981)
- Girl at Her Volcano (EP) - (1983)
- The Magazine - (1984)
- Flying Cowboys - (1989)
- Pop Pop - (1991)
- Traffic From Paradise - (1993)
- Naked Songs - (1995)
- Ghostyhead - (1997)
- It's Like This - (2000)
- Live at Red Rocks - (2001)
- The Evening of My Best Day - (2003)
- Rickie Lee Jones: Duchess of Coolsville - (2005)
- The Sermon on Expositions Boulevard - due January 2007
Singles
| Year | Title | Chart positions | Album | |||
| US Hot 100 | US Modern Rock | US Mainstream Rock | UK | |||
| 1979 | "Chuck E's in Love" | #4 | - | - | #18 | Rickie Lee Jones |
| 1979 | "Youngblood" | #40 | - | - | - | Rickie Lee Jones |
| 1984 | "The Real End" | #82 | - | - | - | The Magazine |
| 1989 | "Satellites" | - | #23 | - | - | Flying Cowboys |
Trivia
- Her hit single "Chuck E's in Love" is about fellow musician Chuck E. Weiss, whom she lived alongside at the Tropicana Hotel in the early 1970s. She was in a romantic relationship with Weiss's friend Tom Waits around the same time.
- Her voice was sampled for The Orb's single Little Fluffy Clouds after she appeared with Levar Burton on the US children's programme Reading Rainbow. Because of this both Jones and Burton were involved in legal action, but Big Life (the music label which released "Little Fluffy Clouds") later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
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