Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Rickie Lee Jones

Transcript

Rickie Lee Jones · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Ricky Lee Jones hit it big with her debut
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: album in seventy nine. The following year, she won the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and over the course
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of the next four decades, released numerous albums that pulled
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: inspiration from jazz, rock, electronic music, and even musical theater.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: In late April, Ricky released her latest album, Pieces of Treasure,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: where she sings songs in the American songbook with a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: jazz slant producer and legendary an arman. Russ Titelman, who
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: produced Ricky's first two albums, reunited with her on her
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: latest and helped inspire Ricky to find a comfort in
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: her lower vocal register. The result is an oftentimes sultry
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: meditation on aging and survival. On today's episode, Bruce HEADLM
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: talks to Ricky Ley Jones about her decades long fight
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to sing jazz, even though she's often viewed as an outsider.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: She also tells stories about leaving home as a young
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: teenager and the abuse she endured while trying to survive
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: on her own. She played songs from her career, including
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: one she wrote after seeing John Lennon appear to her
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: in a dream, and just a note before we get started.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: This episode contains descriptions of sexual abuse and might not
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: be appropriate for all listeners. This is broken record liner
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's Bruce
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Hedlam with Ricky Lee Jones.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I've always thought of you as someone who and I
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: thought of this particularly on the new record. You're someone
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: who is acting in the song in a strength. Did
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: you always think of yourself as that one?
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I've just found the words to say that. But I've
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: always put the song on and been inside of it,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and I know everything about everybody in it. So if
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I sing something cool, I know where she's sitting, what
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: she's wearing, where she bought it, everybody at the bar.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: I see it all. And I think that's what an
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: actor does. They try to create everything about their character.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: But it happens to me instantaneously. I have a rich imagination,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: I guess, and when I sing, the tree instantly grows.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And I started thinking this year, I'm acting songs, and
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: there's a little difference between singing a song and acting.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Being a song actor, it suggests i'mhow that I'm not
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: a real singer, which of course I am. A serious singer,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: but I think I'm acting, I'm being the song.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: It's closer to singers from previous generations. We're like that,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: like Peggy Lee or Julie London. Yes, people like that
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: seem to kind of inhabit songs become the characters and songs.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: They were singers, not primarily songwriters, although Peggy Lee did
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: write some songs. But you you write them, so people think, oh,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: they must be confessions. They're yeah, pouring your soul out. Yeah,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and you don't really pour your soul out.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: I like to write stories, and in this story might
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: be some poignant, unresolved tear drop or something. That's the
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: best way to show it in this way, as any
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: writer does, you know, put their own emotion because that's
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: the only palette we have right into what they write.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: And that thing again of the singer songwriter versus the
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: singer how people see them, because after Bob Dylan and
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Joni Mitchell, it became crucial to be a songwriter. If
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: you weren't a songwriter, then you're not really authentic. If
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: you didn't write that song, then why even singing it?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Kind of aut itude, which I of course disagree with.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: To me, the interpreter, the singer, the bard is who matters. Yes, yes,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you wrote the song. But if there's no
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: one to sing it, what does it matter? So Peggy
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Lee or me or anybody who loves a song and
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: loves to sing and loves hear other people, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: whether it's a choir or whatever, loves singing. That's what
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I like most. When I had the ear of the
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: press the way I did in the early eighties, I
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: talk about Linda Ronstaff, for instance, who was not as
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: in style now for a minute, because she wasn't punk
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: rock and she didn't write songs. But I was like, bet,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: she's a great singer. And whatever comes into fashion, and
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: I'm glad new things come into fashion. But you can't
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: discard the meaning of a singer, I think.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Because when you came out, you don't sound like Joni Mitchell,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: but you looked a bit like Jomie Mitchell, so much
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: like her, so everybody's, oh, she's influenced by Joni Mitchell.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And then I'm reading your book and it's like Jimmy Hendrix.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It's West Side Story, which is a big thing for you. Yeah,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: and there's a very I won't give it away. There's
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: a very lovely scene with that guy. I'll say his name,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Tom Waite's the only time I'm going.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: To say it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Where you're outside of a bar and someone says a
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: line and someone else yeah, and then you all sing it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: He gets the line wrong, I think too. But it's
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: this beautiful scene.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Because and it's real, It really happened.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And people grew up, you know, back then, like people
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: would have records. They might have the Beatles, but then
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: their parents would have South Pacific or Camelot or something,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: a sound of everybody had sound of music. Back then.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: You said you tended towards Laura Nero. What did you
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: get from her? What was it that drew you?
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I got that thing of these strange and I still
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: haven't learned her songs. But these kinds of chords, right,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: and hers are much darker, but and they probably show
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: up passing in Leonard Bernstein. So that's what she had.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: She had inversions that were magical to me, and I
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: wanted to know them. She also happened to see her
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: on public television at the same time I heard of
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: so to see her is something else entirely. She looked
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: like a terribly mentally ill person who could hardly sit
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: there to perform this song. And as a teenager, I
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: really identified with that part. Felt pretty barely together myself.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: So I liked that there was somebody there who dared
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: to show herself as she was.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: And she was also very theatrical, Yes that's a better word.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: She was creating scenes with her people know, wedding bell Blues,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: that's one of her big songs, But it creates a
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: big it does.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: It's like a show number, something like the one about Tomcat.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Goodbye is like its own piece of theater from top
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: to bottom. So it's a little bit of Gershwin's, a
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: little bit of organbezz and then a lot of motown soul.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: And she's made her own kind of music. I'm not
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: gonna say brand, but she's made her own and you know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I think what I love is the sound of her voice.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: But that that she did that probably was a map
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: for me that I could also make my own room
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: of my own imaginary people.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: What do you think are your songs that do that
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the best? What rooms do you go? I got that one?
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the things from Pirates, I would say, And.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: He's got walk crazy act turns him into a car.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Two and pretty girls go by. Nothing here to do anymore,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: so he sits on the stoop all day.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: I does something is waiting for Countfinger. Louis picks up
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Eddy in the alley.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: He likes to come here with them buzz from that town.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Everybody there looks like Frankie Valley and they're fluently blonde
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: from her leg to a cigarette. And Louis told Eddie
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: fix him up, but he ain't come back in now
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: this rhyme Frankie Valley. I was originally trying to rhyme
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Eddie Briggotti because Eddie Briggotty is from the Young Rascals,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: and I loved the Young Rascals and especially you know
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: his How can I be sure there's not? And I
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: like the idea that nobody's written about Eddie Briggotty, but
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I couldn't find anything to rhyme with Gotti. More people
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: would know who Frankie Valley was. It's a very one
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: of my funny lines. I have a few funny lines,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: but I always feel like it goes right by people.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: They're they're enchanted by the service. Start, what are you
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: talking about? Now? Where everybody looks like Frankie Valley.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: And then.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: More trouble than it's worth?
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: What trouble in his word? Oh wold to tell him where.
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: You Oh wowld So that's one I think, tell him.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Where you are?
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: And then that one goes there, and there's another verse
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: about the girl.
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: So those are the two boys Eddie and and oh
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: and so those characters were inspired by my friend Salbernardi's
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: childhood friends in Lodi, New Jersey. He had this one guy,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: so he had count fingered Louis. But the other one
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: was the guy was one crazy all right that when
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: he got nervous, it started spitting all around. So I
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: brought his characters in. And then so zero quits cool.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: She lost her job again and her boyfriend beat her
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: up and he won't let her in. She's walking by
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: this joint in her black and blue dress.
• 11:33
  Speaker 8: She looks a little welbones out of you, says, don't
• 11:37
  Speaker 8: tell me, Leving guess.
• 11:41
  Speaker 7: It's more trouble in his word, she's moore trouble in
• 11:48
  Speaker 7: his word.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: Oh why? And then.
• 12:02
  Speaker 9: Fast and west this way.
• 12:10
  Speaker 8: When you've got all these ideas, you'd never to.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Any one.
• 12:25
  Speaker 8: There are these magnet's pulling j left, living every story.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Only once.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: So in that part, remember when you're in a movie
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: and the newspapers go by and they're spinning by it.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: This is the exciting time.
• 12:45
  Speaker 10: That's what that was.
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: Up.
• 12:52
  Speaker 8: Hey, yeah, we'll liveving it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 9: Up, welling up, we'll.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: It up, well.
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: Up, ye will livevyvinge up.
• 13:19
  Speaker 9: Welving it up? Yeah, well, liveving it up? Yeah, well,
• 13:28
  Speaker 9: living up.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Up. And then I think it was probably really inspired
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: by my friendship with Lunetti found nor reason.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: Then in there carried her over the bridges.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: And fluttering pages. They didn't care, this terminal where dreams
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: led so many tickets through and strange looking faces, and
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: see somebody there.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: They knew.
• 14:14
  Speaker 11: You could meet me tomorrow when all of the lights
• 14:17
  Speaker 11: aide blooming. Feel a little lonely, a little sad, a
• 14:24
  Speaker 11: little mean, But remember this place, Sada's Hotel.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: You could do anything you want.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: You could never tell.
• 14:38
  Speaker 11: It's not trouble in its word, but trouble than its word.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Whoa wow, I won't you tell me where you are?
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: That? Yeah, so I'd say more than any song I've written.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: That song answers hers right, or a song about her
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: characters living in the darker part of the city. This
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: one sets them free to go somewhere else. Always I
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: don't always, but for a long time I've felt it's
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: a conversation we have when we're lucky enough to be
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: writers of songs that people here and sing. We're all
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: talking to one another and responding to one another. It's
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: just a lie to pretend that you live in a
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: vacuum and everything comes out of your own head. And
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: if you're not being honest about it, then your thief
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: and and you're stealing stuff. So we must learn from
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: one another, and it has to be okay to say
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: learning from somebody else. And then I made up my
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: own thing. Yeah, I think so.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the things about that song you
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: just played, you're constantly changing tempos. You know, you've stopped
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the whole band in the middle, and then it starts
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: back up again. Where does that come from? Is that
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: from musicals as well?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Maybe so. I've always liked things that changed directions
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: and changed and they did it in the pop stuff
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: for a while, right, Crosby stills a nish. It was exciting,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: but probably musical theater does it first?
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Can you tell me about Away from the sky that.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Was inspired by the death of John Lennon. I dream
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: I had about John Lennon. I feel pretty strong today,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: so I can probably talk about it. But sometimes if
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I just talk about sad stuff, it's overwhelming. But not
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: that long after he died, I dreamed of him. I've
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: never been there, but on a British or riding his
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: bike with a stocking cap. And then like the three beards,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: in the back of him was Yokoa and in back
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: of her was shown each one is in the little
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: bike and there was a pier. And as he turned
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: to go on to the pier, he looked at me.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: Gentleman is looking at me, and he sang this, Let's see.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: There was a crooked man who lived on a crooked shore.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: But now he'll never have to go away anymore.
• 17:47
  Speaker 8: Away from the sky. Ahway from the sky.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: And turned onto the pier and they followed him. Really
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: when I woke up, because sometimes those things dissolve instantly,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know why, but that part never made it
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: into the recording, I saved the real party saying for
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: myself and I made up a song based on a
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Dylan Thomas short story called After the Fair. You know
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: the thing on the record is my demo. So I'm
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: just going boom boomed, as minimal as it can be.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: And then, and because I was probably half writing it
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: as I recorded. For all that it cost him, he
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: never did complain. The chicken headed man. They're feathering the rain,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: but the last bassist tie.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Everybody's gone.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: The horses are painted with the waiting.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: Of the lawn. Go from the rodeo.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: God, from the tundraug girl, it's after the fair.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: That's when I see you.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: There she sleeps in the canvas. The fat man hollers,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: O tender is the night I feel bleeding out of you.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: So come into my trailer. We can toast a little bread.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Look, you left a hole oil laid on my bed.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: He said. But you keep what you can keep. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: when you dive into the deep this year, after Froz
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: and you, that's where saved youse.
• 20:53
  Speaker 10: Away from the sky, Oh.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: Away from the sky, Oh, away from the sky, Away
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: from the sky.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: But everybody's gone.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: It's after the fair. The horses are waiting in the middle.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Of the So you turn the.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Care yourself on. When the lights closed down, you can
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: watch the ponies round through the middle of town.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: That you go, little girl, there you.
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: Go, gone from the tongue run.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: Now it's after the fences.
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: When over the fences again and the vacuum and the hole.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: And the plans up in.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: The air, that's where I.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Can hear your best.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: But away from the sky, Away from the sky, Oh,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: from the sky.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Away from the skyes.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: That was Ricky Lee Jones performing her song away from
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the Sky. We have to take a quick break and
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: we'll be back with more from Bruce Headlam and Ricky
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Lee Jones. We're back with more from Ricky Lee Jones.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because I reread your your autobiography and now
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: you moved so much when you.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Were a kid.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, it seemed that you were always having to reintroduce
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: your or introduce yourself.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Although you always did it, it seemed to fill you
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: with terror, the idea that he.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, and that terror of people basic mistrust and expectation
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: that at some point don't do their worst. Stayed with me.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: The playground seems to be ever with us, I could
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: say with me, But it does seem like that that
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: scenario is playing out over and over again of a
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: bully kids who want to follow the bully, just so
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: they don't get picked on. A couple kids who are
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: one's different or one's as poor, or it's always the
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: same dynamic of who's on top and who's underneath. And
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I think the fact that I was a little different,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: though I didn't think so, but I think I must
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: have been gave me someone to be so that I
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: wasn't anonymous, because I guess more than I hated being
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: picked on, I hated being invisible. So I accepted that,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: but I really never understood why I'd look in the
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: mirror and go, aren't I pretty? Why don't they like me?
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And it's still a mystery to me, really.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, even later in your book, you're very critical of
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: what was sort of late stage hippies. So the people
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: you hung around with, it seemed that when you were traveling,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: and you started traveling, I think at fourteen and just
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: checking hiking, and you know, you lived in a cave
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: for a while. There were other people in the cave too,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: but I was still a cave, you know. It seemed that,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: you know, particularly a lot of the menu met were
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: very the usury. They're very predatory, and they were the hippies.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: They were they talked a good game, but a lot
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: of them were very abusive.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I was really young, and I believed what I read,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: my impressions of what it would be like to be
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: a grown up in that world, to be an active
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: member of their idea of what life should be like.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: But those people were just greasers a little bit older, right,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: They were just the tough kids at school in nineteen
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: sixty two, or whoever they were. I saw them as
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: magically appearing with long hair like Christ. And so, you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I was definitely needed a place to stay and needed
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: something to eat, and the cost of that was my body,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: and you know, that was very hard. Sometimes I just
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: wanted to be able to rest and not have to
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: struggle with some guide. Would he relent and not try
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: to put his dick in me? Or would that be
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: the cost of having a night of food. I have
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: never actually said that so starkly and truly, because it
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: was so hard and a little kid, you know, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: then getting up the next day if you lucky, if
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: it's the next day and they don't want you there anymore.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And I think every single guy I met, I thought,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: well he married me? Is he the one who loved me,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: every one of them, and so that was lots of disappointments.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: But I've, you know, have many years to think about it,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: and I was really just a very little kid in
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: a woman's body, in a costume that looked like old
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: enough for them. I think some of them would have
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: withdrawn if they knew my two age, but most of
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: them know. I think it was kind of cool, right
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: to be attracted to a young teenager. They still sell
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: that image a lot of school girl like hit Me
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Baby One More.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Time Britney spears.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she sold that image as well. So as long
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: as we let that image be sold and you know
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: that stuff is going on in reality, I.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Do want to talk about a nice guy. Yes, that's
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: your producer on this project, Russ Titelman, who was one
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: of your first producers. Yeah, my first, your first. He
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: was your first.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I had two producers, Lenny Warrenker and Russ Titleman, and
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I'd seen Lenny. I didn't know from producers, but I
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: saw Lenny's name on the back of a Randy Newman record.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: It's about two years maybe before I got signed.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Most people would have wanted to meet Randy Newman. No,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: you went into the small type.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: That's right. I've always known that's the way in. You
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: can't go for the big, big thing because everybody wants
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: to meet Randy. But if you find I was an
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: infamous getter in Backstage Girl, and I'd watched the secret
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: way that nobody was going and just slip in that way.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: So that was the same philosophy of how to get in.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: So anyway his name, and so we sent tapes around
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: to three or four people. He got one of them
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: and and I was exactly right. He was the way,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: and I pushed, you know, when the record companies went
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: to sign me, this little I think it was called
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Portrait or something. This little company made the best offer,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: and we went back to Warner Brothers, my lawyer, a
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: big shot working for free. We talked him and I'm
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: going to be a big shot and said, you know,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: she wants to go with Lindy. So if you'll meet
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the offer. I don't know if that's okay to tell that,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: but if you'll meet the offer, it we'll come with you.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: And that happened exactly as it was meant to. So
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Lenny sent the tape to Russ because they were partners
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: in production. Russ was working with George Harris in England,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: and he tells this story a lot now now that
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: we're reunited. So when he heard Company, he called Lenny
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: and said, this girl is a singer. She's like roberta Flock,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: which is a pretty big compliment. And Lenny said, I
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: really noticed I was listening to the songs, so they
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: were perfect. Him addressing the songs, we got to put
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: an accordion on the bridge because the Italians are there,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: and him addressing the singer, you got to go sing
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: that line again. So it was good.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine now just what a incredible period
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: that was for you. You'd only been writing songs for
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: a couple of years. Yes, you were living in La I.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Was homeless in the months before I was signed. I
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: just tumbled into having nowhere to go.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: What was it like, suddenly the these record companies are
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: bidding for you.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it felt as if it was always supposed to
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: be that way.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Did you always think that growing up that this was
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: going to happen.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: No, But I always felt that I was going somewhere special.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: I always felt like I was always talking to the
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: invisible world and God's cameras right about here. Is how
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: you got it is look up today. So it's hard
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: to explain what I always thought, but I feel a
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: constant connection to something that almost has no words but
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: is ever present in here. But I can't say that
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I did you know? My life was troubled and going nowhere.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I didn't have any skills, I'd quit high school, but
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I had this. When I sang, it was all that
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I am. Anything I sang was totally emotional. And then
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I got this job as a singing way too, and
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: everybody else was so much louder than me. I thought,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to learn how to sing louder or
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I'm never gonna get a job. So I taught myself.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: But there was a book, and I put my hands
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: on my chest and found a way to put that
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: sound in the bones and practice. And that was the first,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: you know, because always thought it was a great singer,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: But the fact was I could be a great singer,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: but it wasn't. So I taught myself to be a
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: better singer. As soon as I did that, within a year,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: it presented itself to me. It was just life presented
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: itself to me.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Did you not know you wanted to be a singer
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: before that. What made you finally focus on that?
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: You know, since I was sixteen, I'd been practicing, you know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: sweet Juty blue Eyes and singing and play with my
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: girlfriend Julian, playing everywhere. But when I was on my
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: own and got to La, it seemed like that will
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: never happen there. It's a town full of people trying
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: to do it. And you're so weird. You're not like
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Joni Mitchell. You can't sing like Joe Bias. You're so weird,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: right because you're different, and so somebody will come. They
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: might not all, but somebody will come because you're different.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: They'll like that about you. And I had this natural
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: thing for jazz. My father sang jazz and his father
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: was a vaudevillion And I began to you know, what
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I know how to do is my funny Valentine. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: so I started singing the jazz ballads in Venice when
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: and nobody was doing it. So that felt powerful. I
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: have something that's just mine and I did it really well,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: and the local snooty musician and suddenly were like, we
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: like you come and sit in with us again. So
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I started to feel like I had a possibility and
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: an identity, and then in a short time I had
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: my own Friday night gig at a bar, and then
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: a short time later I was making a demo for
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: a record company. So once I set aside doubt and
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: my mother said, I said, Mom, I'm going to go
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: to school and be a stenographer. I've only got to
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: go eighteen months and I'll have a job. She said,
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: but I thought you wanted to be a singer, imagine,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: And I said I did, but I just can't see
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: how that would ever happen. And she said, don't you
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: give up on your dreams.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Interesting because your mother had had a very tough life,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: very tough. She'd been an orphan. Yeah, your father lost
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: his mother very young.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: As well, so they're both that in common.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: And she seemed to live a very controlled life and
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: either keep she had to keep things. She kept things
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: together for other people. It's interesting that she was the
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: one who said to you, I thought you wanted to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: be a sending.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: No, it was almost divine, like the other voice said,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: we got to speak through Betty right now, or she's
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: going to give up. Don't give up on your dreams. Yeah,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: it was unexpected and so heartfelt that I thought, my
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: mother is invested in me trying with all my might
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to make a dream come true, And it almost seemed
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: like it was more she wanted me to try, But
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: I thought, maybe she thinks I can do it too.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: She's not here, she didn't see what's happening, but she
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: believes me.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: When you got into the studio for the first time,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: you played with bands, and you had fabulous players I did.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: You had Steve gadd Andy, Newmark, Willie Week, the incredible
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Victor Feldman who was in Miles Davis's band, and did
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: all that's Teelee Dan work. So one of the things
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: about when you were with the top tier players is
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: they're very kind. It's the other ones that's jabbulut. But
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: the best players are very kind and they love making music.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: And so I couldn't write it, but I could sing
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: it all. So I sang all the horn parts, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: somebody wrote them down and they played them and they
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: were exactly how I thought they would sound in my head.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: But the other aspects of recording, like Chucky's in Love
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: and stuff, as it manifested into the physical world, it
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: wasn't at all what I only ever heard my voice
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: and me. So the producers endeavored to bring to reality
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: whatever feeling they thought I had, and their own, you know,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: how to make a good record. I think their choices
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: were always much cleaner, tamer, precise. Then I might have gone.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad, you know, and I've known people like
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: this about me best I think then the more raggedy stuff.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: But they took me out gently and my guitar playing
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and put in.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: So what was that like? That incredible year? You're signed,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: you make this record with these amazing players, You're on
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live, you argue with them on Saturday Night Live,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: which I thought was pretty gutsy. They wanted you to
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: do one song you wanted to do Coolsville.
• 38:56
  Speaker 10: I did.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember seeing that Saturday Night Live. Everybody does.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: It was a you were suddenly huge. Yeah, and you
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: had a check for fifty thous that's right. Was what
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: was the first thing you bought with that?
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Probably? You know, dinner? First of all, I had nowhere
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: to put it. I didn't have a bank account, so
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: when I got that check, I still had to borrow
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: some money from Lenny because I didn't have a cash
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: and really I didn't know how anything worked. And know
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: how to have a bank account or how to tip
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: or so what was that like? You know, it's almost
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: like the whole life was holding his breath so for
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: for a little while, everything was just shimmering and still
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: and right, that's what it was, like, I think, But.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: You beat the second album curse I did?
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: I meant to too that, you're like, I was well
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: aware of it. I had met Bet Middler at a dinner.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Was this before your record?
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, before the first record? So because you thought, she said,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: let me tell you what's going to happen. You're gonna
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: put this one out and if it doesn't do horrible,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: they'll pick up your second one, and not to your
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: third record. Will you have any kind of acclaimer success?
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: And that was kind of what happened to most people.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: And that was I thought, nah, we'll see. I think
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: my first record's probably gonna do pretty good. So when
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: we had the big success, so big, bigger than anything.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Hard to find a woman who had had that kind
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: of success coming out the gate, though you know, they
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: probably weren't telling it up in the sixties in exactly
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: the same way, but it was. It was a very
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: big thing, and it was a crossover kind of thing,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: and culturally, I got to expand the idea. You know,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: I was a singer songwriter, but I wasn't a fochy
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: And these things sound small now, but they were big
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: making people accept that it works. It'll make everybody money,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: and it's different than what was before. So I know
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: I can't match this record in any way. I'm not
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: the same person. I'm not as happy, and those are
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of beautiful, happy songs, and I'm not on
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: this side of the mountain anymore. So from the other
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: side of the mountain, I will draw the picture of
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: what I see fiercely, and I won't give one eyelash
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: to the idea of a song that you'll play on
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: the radio. And so a little bit of it is defiance,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: and that's okay. You can't help but not respond to
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: what's happening. You know, if that hadn't happened, what would
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I have written?
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: But so what I wrote was what was happening to me.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: And I think that the incredible thing that happens with
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: the recording is it captures more than in the song itself.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: It captures your intention and it captures your spirit That's
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: the inexplicable thing about a great record is it has spirit,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: and people put it on the list of their important records.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: I personally think the first record is important, but I
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: don't exactly know why Pirates matters more. I'm guessing people
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: who put it on their favorite lists don't know it's
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: the SECA record, so they don't know it's overcoming expectations.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: But I like it. It's dreamy. It's remarkable in its
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: musicality and sophistication for a girl who had no education.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: But I like a song I can sing, like I
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: was saying, I like a melody that you remember. I
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: don't know if anybody can sing the traces of the
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Western slopes, you know. So I don't mean to insult myself,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: but I'm glad that it hit with people. But then
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: the curse probably came some years later. I took a
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: long time to make the third record. It was nineteen
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: eighty four, I think, so I had gone in and
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: out of heroin addiction, and a couple of times I
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: had drunk on stage, not many, but the times I did.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: There was a big, full length photograph in a newspaper,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: and the promoters. The promoters Union exiled me from many stages.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: Guys did much worse, but I think that there was
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: an expectation of proper, pristine behavior from me because of
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: the quality.
• 44:01
  Speaker 9: Of the work.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: We don't like our girls to behave badly, and they
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: want to think of of a woman. It's a tragic,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: falling figure. And so many people want to disrespect to
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: anybody instead of loving, forgiving, spreading that goodwill. So I
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: was in a really defensive posture when I did the magazine.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: I was off drugs and I wanted everybody to know it,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: and I did a cover looking really off drugs.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: And everybody's very healthy, very.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Healthy, and I was super healthy. But I spent some
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: time in France and I was leaning towards a more
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: classical kind of music. Now I'd heard Eric Sati and
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: it was expanding in another way. So these are weird.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: This was the one album I wrote that I wanted
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: to do theater with it, So this was the direction
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: I would have liked to have grown in some version
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: of my life, to write theater and act. But at
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: that point I seemed to be just collapsing emotionally. The
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: broken love affairs, the trail of dead, and the very
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: beginning of living with Tom Waits for the rest of
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: my life because nobody would stop asking me about him.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: In every interview. Aside from that, it was kind of emotional.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It's like, but aren't I a musician? You have no
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: respect or interest in the person who's sitting in front
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: of you. Now, if you want to talk to Tom, the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: phone over there, call him, But why do you want
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: to talk to me about that? So you know, there
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: were years where I was resentful and angry and tell
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: them if they mention it, they'll be escorted out, and
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: all these things till finally, I don't know, in the
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: last ten years I went, isn't that wonderful? We have
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: lived together all our lives, that brief time, that beautiful
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: time that was so remarkable to audiences and so enchanting.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: We looked like we belong together that song, and they
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: won't let it go? Isn't that wonderful? And would have
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: liked to have had some peace with him, but that
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: did not and would never happen, And that was all
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: that turned out to be just as hard as living
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: with the questions, you know, twenty years ago.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: But now I'm mean living with the unresolved yeah.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: And also the pain of this breakup was really hard.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: But to be reminded by every passing stranger who comes
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: to talk, especially in Europe, they really want to know,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: poke at it all the time.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: And did you think that your persona became the kind
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: of spurned woman or is that the role people put
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: you in?
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And bet you yeah, yes, spurned woman, that would be
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: an assumption that. But then when he became very popular,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: when that then it was more like we want to
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: touch you because you're part of the purple of Tom Waits,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: the purple cloth. So at that point is where that
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: would probably happen.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: No offense to Tom Waits. He's never been as popular
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: as you were, though, oh so.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Much more, sells so many more tickets, you know, I
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: see him as more popular than Bob Dylan. You know,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: there are so many people copying his style. I'm just
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: like in awe, how did how did that happens? That's
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: what I saw. You didn't see that.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Never had an album that was as big as your
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: first couple albums.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: But I think some cultural thing. I remember the guy
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: in nine inch Nails talking of about him when my
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: daughter was so probably ninety five or ninety six, and
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: that was when he seemed to take on this other
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: alternative world status of a golden god. And I was
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: one of the women who had touched him. And that
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: was the hardest part. That was the hardest time in
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: the nineties when people were like, we don't know Avrind,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: but you were Tom Waits's girlfriend, and that we want
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: to talk about. Whereas before we love your music and
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: you talk to us about your broken heart. But now
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: I go, look, it's part of the legend of human beings.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: And when we're gone, we'll still be there together. We're
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: one of the lovers. Isn't that wonderful? Come on, you
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: gotta love that.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: We'll be back after another quick break with more from
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Bruce Hudlam and Ricky Lee Jones. We're back with the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: rest of Bruce Headlam's conversation with Ricky Lee Jones.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about a couple of your songs? Well,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you mentioned Company, that that was the song that was
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: that Russ that liked Company? Or was that that was
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Reuss Russ? What did he tell you he heard in.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: That He said that Lenny sent this cassette to him,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: which was the demo I made at Warner Brothers, you know,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to entice him to co produce, because I like, I said,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: I went with Warner Brothers if Lenny would produce me.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: So he said he you know, heard the first couple
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: of songs, Chuck is in Love, my dad's song the
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Moon Is Made of Gold, one that didn't get on
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: the record called the Real Things Back in Town. And
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: then Company, which I wrote with my the only co
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: writer I think I've really had, which who is Alfred Johnson.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: He and I wrote that song one night together. The
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: story of writing Company was so I had a job
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: working for this gangster named Rocky Miller. Rocky was a
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: real gangster, and he'd show me his money in his
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: sock and he wore garters stays, I guess they're calling,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I think, And he's a real creep. And he'd make
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: me sit on his lap. He'd call me into the
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: office and say come over here, and I don't want
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: to come over there. He said, come here, I'll fire you.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: And so I'd sit on his lap like an angry teenager,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: which is all you can do in nineteen seventy eight.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: And that was the terrible part of the job. But
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: the great part was that I had access to a
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: typewriter all day long. And when I had a typewriter,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: another kind of you know, it was like another kind
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: of lyric came out. And so I sat there and
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: wrote the lyrics to young Blood and Company and the
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: beginnings of something else. So I have my little notebook
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: and files full of lyric ideas. And I met Alfred
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: on the beach in Venice. He was playing some little
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: feet maybe I was standing there listening to him, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: I'll sing.
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: A little bit.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Ah madam singing with him, and he looked at me
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: kind of and he said, and so I said, do
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: you know any lower nero? And little stars floated out
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: of his eyes. And then he invited me over to
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: his house, and I said okay, and I got in
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: between him and his friend and we drove a mile
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: down to Culver City, and then we went into his house,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: which just like I stayed now in this motel right
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: by where his house was. And as we walked in
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: the door, there were dismembered dolls everywhere, and dolls hanging
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: from things and heads here, and right away I went,
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: oh cool. And it was like I passed the test
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: with them, because you had to decide right away, Are
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: you dead or is this some kind of goofy art installation?
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: And there were two men, you know so, but I
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: was pretty sure he was a kind of odd musician,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: and right away we had this powerful language together. And
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: then a few weeks later we wrote Company together, which
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: was kind of like having a love affair. By the
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: end of the night we were done, but we wrote
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: every single bar entwined together. And it's a beautiful odd lyric.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: You know, when I reach across the galaxy, I'll miss
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: your company, And in that way it was a little
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: different than a regular.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: You're leaving me song.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: That's one of the only straight ahead lyrics I wrote
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: about you and what you're doing and how I feel.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Normally I would have made up some guy somebody's name
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: and how she feels.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: She has an old fashioned quality, though it has a book.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Quality for that. At that time, we you know, we
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: were writing thinking maybe we'd get these songs to famous people.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Chucky's in Love was kind of aimed at Bette Midler,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: and Company was aimed at Frank Sinatra. And when I
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: got signed, I told Moe Austin, who was a good
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: friend when I was there, and Lenny, would you take
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: this to Frank because they'd fly over to the desert
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: for these meetings, you know. So they said, we're taking
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: it to Frank and then they didn't tell me when.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: So what happened? Is he going to do it? And
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: they said, you don't want him to do it, said
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: he can't hit those notes anymore. I don't know if
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: I just say this on the air, But the other
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: one said, and anyway, he went to publishing for anything
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: he does, so I don't know if you want him,
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: he won't even consider doing it unless he has the publishing.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's what they said.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, because I guess he had his own writers anybody.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's greed. Yes, But when you're that powerful,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: if he records the song, the world will hear it. Yes,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: So what is a publisher anyway? They're the guy who's
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: supposed to bring the song to the world, and they
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: should get their half of the penny if they do
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: that job. We Folky's bought our own publishing. But also
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: it didn't make our songs anybody, So you know, everybody
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: had said you must keep your publishing as you age.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: It's going to be the only way you keep making money.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: And of course they were right, but I probably, you know,
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: with Alfred's permission, would have given up the public sing
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: on that if Frank, I mean that at least it
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: seems from here.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: That I might have that. Were you always a fan
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: of Frank?
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, oh, yes, yes always. My father was a singer.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: The timber and style of him is like the Mills
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Brothers and Frank Sinatra, and my mom had a you know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: schoolgirl crush on him, so he, more than any other singer,
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: felt like he was telling my story when he sang
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: any woman, anybody, until I heard the Beatles, whose collective
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: harmony was otherworldly to me. But those were my two
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: main guardian angels initially. Then you know, expanded.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Throughout your career. You've done cover records, you tend not
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: to mix them with originals. Yeah, you've done rebel, Rebel
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: you did for no One. So tell me about this album,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: how it came about? Yes, why the songs? And is
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: there a story you're telling with these songs.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: There's not a story I'm telling with them. They were
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: picked because I could sing them well and I wanted
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: people to know I was a jazz singer. But there
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: was a journalist a couple of weeks. This is important
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: to me because I hadn't really gotten this feedback. So
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: clearly there was a journalist a couple of weeks ago
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: who said, I saw you in Cleveland in nineteen seventy nine,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: and you opened with Chuck's in Love and we were going,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: what is she got to do now? And then you
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: introduced us to Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday and Saramon
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: and I was like, there, it is what I waited
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: all my life to hear, and heard it here there.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: So that's as important that long ago, in the long
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: ago history. I was singing it peers or love it,
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: but the jazz world said, you are not allowed in here,
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: you cannot enter.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Did you feel that you bet? You early in your.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Career, and I've figured out I think partially you know,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: because there are unusual First of all, women are are
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: the last person allowed in the room. Singers and women singers.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: But if you didn't only sing jazz, you can't come in.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: If you sang a pop song, you can't come in.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: You have to have exclusively devoted yourself to this one
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: discipline or you can't come in. I called the jazz
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: station and long beached in your disgustard? Would you play
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: Rickney Jones highly Hi Lo said no, we don't play
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: Rickin Jones. Okay said, like on the wall behind it,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: we don't.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: I regularly do your picture with a big excid Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: And you know it hurt. It always hurts to people go, yeah,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: we've decided what you are no matter what you do.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: So I did jazzy songs with some pop in him.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: I was mixed it up a little bit and after
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: pop pop, which got a really weird reviews. You know,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: it was my fortieth birthday and one of the great
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: bebop players, Joe Henderson, had played on two songs. He
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: came to the party and at a moment took me
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: aside and said, I just wanted to tell you that
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: I was sorry to see that you didn't make another record,
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: because I really thought you were onto something. And it
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: was a revelation because this is from a musician and
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: you're listening to critics. Stop it. So it took a
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: long time, and for whatever reason, I found myself thinking
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: about res titleman, and I need to be in the
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: loving care of a real producer who not only knows
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: what they're doing, but loves the sound of my voice.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: And I looked him up. I was thinking we would
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: maybe work on some of my new material, but he said,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: I want to do a jazz I want to do
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: a jazz record. You have not done the American Songbook.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: That's what we're going to do. And so I said, okay,
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: and we began to exchange ideas. But what happened was
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: I knew in the last two years that my voice
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: has begun to change a little because of aging, not
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: a lot, and I don't smoke it to take good
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: care of but it was thinning here and tired there.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: And jazz is the most demanding, I think, because you
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: can in other things. You can yell, you put that
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: up in the back of the throat and hit anything.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: But if you're going to do quiet stuff, what seemed
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: to happen when I started, is this this other quiettitude
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: that was a little bit, you know, saucy and sensual.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: She just stepped right up to the microphone and she
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: just what she was doing.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Like, who is this?
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: I love her voice, it's got a lower thing. But
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: right away I heard the command that I prayed i'd
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: have and didn't expect, and there it was, so we
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: made an extraordinary record that's kind of magic. We went
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: full circle back to the time we left off our
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: professional relationship at Pirates. It's not like Pirates, but something
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: in the power of what happens when we work together
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: was there. I think it stands well next to any
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: beloved vocal work from the fifties or sixties here so
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: because there's a feeling of sensual love and humor and
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: all the things that you can get if you survive.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I'm sixty nine this year. If you survive, you can
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: bring all this stuff to your life and then bring
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: it to the sound of your voice into music. And
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's what's there, is humor and the love
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: of life and the idea that we're singing, you know
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: now for ourselves anymore. We're not going to be here
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: to you know, and maybe I will, but I'm singing
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: now for others and reaching out right.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: That's a great place to stop. Thank you so much.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: That was just wonderful.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ricky Lee Jones for playing and reminiscing about
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: her career with Bruce Headland. You can hear all of
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: our favorite Ricky Lee Jones songs on a playlist at
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Record is produced with help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Ben Taliday, Nisha Venkutt, Jordan McMillan, and Eric sam Our.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
• 1:02:53
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• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: this show, remember to share, rate, and review us on
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  Speaker 1: your podcast stat or the musics by Canna Beats. I'm
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Justin Richman.