Рики Ли Джонс: Пять десятилетий на сцене.

American singer
the singer

Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American singer, musician and songwriter. Over the course of a career that spans five decades and 15 studio albums, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz. A two time Grammy Award winner (from eight nominations), Jones was listed at No. 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999. AllMusic stated: "Few singer/songwriters are as individual and eclectic as Rickie Lee Jones, a vocalist with an expressive and smoky instrument, and a composer who can weave jazz, folk, and R&B into songs with a distinct pop sensibility." The album went platinum later that year, and earned Jones four Grammy Award nominations in 1980, including Best New Artist, which she won. Her third album, The Magazine, appeared in 1984 before Jones took a brief hiatus from recording. Her fourth album, Flying Cowboys, was released in 1989 and later went gold. Her 15th studio album, Pieces of Treasure, was released in 2023 and earned Jones her eighth Grammy Award nomination, for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

Jones was born the third of four children to Richard and Bettye Jones, on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, on November 8, 1954. She was named after her father, who was a singer, songwriter, painter, and trumpet player. Her mother, Bettye, was raised in orphanages around Mansfield, Ohio. She has a brother, Daniel, and two sisters, Janet Adele and Pamela Jo. Her paternal grandfather, Frank "Peg Leg" Jones, and her grandmother, Myrtle Lee, were vaudevillians based in Chicago. A singer, dancer and comedian, Peg Leg Jones' routine consisted of singing and accompanying himself on ukulele, soft shoe dance, acrobatics, and comedy.

At age 21, Jones began singing traditional jazz and original compositions in bars and coffee houses in Venice, California. There she met Alfred Johnson, a piano player and songwriter, with whom she wrote "Weasel and the White Boys Cool", and "Company", which would later appear on Jones's debut album. In 1977, Jones met Tom Waits at The Troubadour. They dated for about two years, before splitting in 1979. The album, which included guest appearances by Dr. John, Randy Newman, and Michael McDonald, reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200, went Platinum, Jones was covered by Time magazine on her very first professional show, in Boston, and they dubbed her "The Duchess of Coolsville". Touring after the album's release, she played Carnegie Hall on July 22, 1979. Members of her group included native New York guitarist Buzz Feiten, who was featured on the album and would appear in her recorded works for over a decade. Following her first ever performances in the spring/summer of 1979, Jones appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, the cover image showed Jones posing in a crouched stance, wearing a black bra and a white beret. Jones secured four nominations at the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "Chuck E.'s in Love"; Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for "The Last Chance Texaco"; and Best New Artist, which she won. The album also earned a nomination for Best Engineered Recording Non Classical, credited to Tom Knox. In 1980, Francis Ford Coppola asked Jones to collaborate with Waits on his upcoming film One from the Heart, but she balked, citing their recent breakup in late 1979. In 1981, Jones released her second album, Pirates, which received high marks from critics and was a commercial success. The album reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200, and soon achieved Gold certification. the magazine also included a glowing five star review of Pirates. The single "A Lucky Guy" became the only Billboard Hot 100 hit from the album, peaking at No. 64, but "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" and "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" became minor Top 40 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. The lead single, "The Real End", reached No. 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. During this period, she replaced Shirley Jones for the role of the Fairy Godmother in Filmation's 1987 film, Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, including a performance of the original song "Love is the Light Inside Your Heart". After a successful tour of Norway and Sweden, and then opening for Ray Charles in Israel with Michael Lang managing her, she returned to the US, signed to Geffen Records by Gary Gersh who teamed her with Steely Dan's Walter Becker for her long awaited fourth album. In September 1988 the two of them began work on Flying Cowboys. The album was released in September 1989, and produced two hits: "Satellites", which hit No. 1 on the new Adult radio format; and "The Horses", co written with Becker. The latter song was covered by Kenny Loggins, and also featured in the movie Jerry Maguire (1996). "The Horses" also became an Australian No. 1 hit single for Daryl Braithwaite when he covered it in 1991. Flying Cowboys made the US Top 40, reaching No. 39 on the Billboard 200, with the college radio hit "Satellites" making it to No. 23 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. Jones sang a duet with Lyle Lovett on "North Dakota" for his 1992 album Joshua Judges Ruth and has also sung on albums by Leo Kottke and Arlo Guthrie. Jones' first solo shows in 1994 paved the way for her acoustic album Naked Songs, released in September 1995 through a one off deal with Reprise Records. The album, which reached No. 121 on the Billboard 200, featured acoustic re workings of Jones classics and album material, but no new songs. Emphasizing her experimentation and change, Jones embraced electronic music for Ghostyhead, released on Reprise Records in June 1997. The album, a collaboration with Rick Boston (both are credited with production and with twenty one instruments in common), found Jones employing beats, loops, and electronic rhythms, and also showcased Jones' connection with the trip hop movement of the mid to late 1990s. Despite critical acclaim, it did not meet with commercial success, peaking at No. 159 on the Billboard 200. Released on the independent label V2 in October 2003, The Evening of My Best Day featured influences from jazz, Celtic folk, blues, R&B, rock, and gospel, and spawned a successful and lengthy spurt of touring. The album peaked at No. 189 on the Billboard 200. Renewed interest in Jones led to the three disc anthology Duchess of Coolsville: An Anthology, released through reissue specialists Rhino in June 2005. A lavish package designed by Lee Cantelon, the alphabetically arranged release featured album songs, live material, covers, and demos, and featured essays by Jones as well as various collaborators, as well as tributes from artists including Randy Newman, Walter Becker, Quincy Jones, and Tori Amos. Also in 2005, Jones was invited to take part in her boyfriend and collaborator Lee Cantelon's music version of his book The Words, a book of the words of Christ, set into simple chapters and themes. Cantelon's idea was to have various artists recite the text over primal rock music, but Jones elected to try something that had never been done, to improvise her own impression of the texts, melody and lyric, in stream of consciousness sessions, rather than read Jesus' words. The sessions were recorded at an artist's loft on Exposition Boulevard in Culver City. When Cantelon could no longer finish the project, Jones picked it up as her own record and hired Rob Schnaf to finish the production at Sunset Sound in 2007, and the result was The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, released on the independent New West Records in February 2007. It included "Circle in the Sand", recorded for the soundtrack to the film Friends with Money (2006), for which Jones also cut "Hillbilly Song". For her next project, Balm in Gilead (2009), Jones opted to finish half written songs dating back as far as 1986 ("Wild Girl") as well as include new ones (the 2008 penned "The Gospel of Carlos, Norman and Smith", "Bonfires"). The album also included a new recording of "The Moon Is Made of Gold", a song written by her father Richard Loris Jones in 1954. Ben Harper, Victoria Williams, Jon Brion, Alison Krauss and the late Vic Chesnutt all made contributions to the album. On September 18, 2012, Jones released The Devil You Know on Fantasy/Concord Records. The Devil You Know includes a collection of covers produced by Ben Harper, including a solo version of "Sympathy for the Devil". Shortly afterward she left Los Angeles and moved to New Orleans. In 2015, Jones released her album The Other Side of Desire, and the single "Jimmy Choos" which references the shoe brand. A documentary film, Rickie Lee Jones: The Other Side of Desire, on the making of the album, was also released. It was her first album of all new original material since Balm in Gilead six years earlier. In 2019, Jones released a single of the Paul Rodgers/Simon Kirke song, "Bad Company", followed by her album Kicks which included "Bad Company" and cover versions of many other songs. In June of that year, she played at the Glastonbury Festival. In 2021, Jones's memoir Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour was released by Grove Press. Simon and Schuster bought the audio book rights.

In 2001, Jones was the organizer of the web community "Furniture for the People", which is involved in gardening, social activism, bootleg exchange and left wing politics. She has produced records (including Leo Kottke's Peculiaroso), and provided a voiceover for Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, in which she played the Blue Fairy (known as the Good Fairy or Fairy Godmother in the film). Jones also enjoys gardening. Jones served as the narrator of Cam Archer's 2010 film Shit Year.