Episode 1228 - Rickie Lee Jones
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:That okay with you?
Marc:Rikki Lee Jones is on the show.
Marc:She's a singer, songwriter, musician, an artist who has been at it for over five decades.
Marc:I remember when that first Ricky Lee Jones album came out, it was like, what is this?
Marc:So cool.
Marc:I remember watching her on Saturday Night Live.
Marc:So fucking cool.
Marc:She was so good.
Marc:It's weird because she came up recently in the conversation with Katie Segal.
Marc:And she also has a memoir out, a new one called Last Chance Texaco.
Marc:So it seemed like a good time to talk to her.
Marc:It was all heading that direction.
Marc:She was in New Orleans when I talked to her.
Marc:But man, she was a trip.
Marc:I remember those records, man.
Marc:I remember when she just was like, what is this?
Marc:Where did she come from?
Marc:What year?
Marc:What generation?
Marc:What galaxy?
Marc:How is this okay?
Marc:Because it was in the middle of a lot of other things going on that weren't that.
Marc:Like her and Waits, man.
Marc:The thing.
Marc:So I was excited to talk to her.
Marc:Look, man, Charles Grodin passed away.
Marc:He was old and he had a good run.
Marc:And he was one of the great, great comic actors.
Marc:And it was sad.
Marc:I just rewatched Midnight Run a few weeks ago.
Marc:And I remember, I think we talked about it here, how hard it was to find the original Heartbreak Kid with him in it.
Marc:He was just such a unique, funny crank.
Marc:And he could play straight, too.
Marc:I mean, he was just his presence was so specifically his.
Marc:Oh, I'm looking at his filmography right now.
Marc:I forgot he was in Rosemary's Baby.
Marc:He plays the second opinion doctor.
Marc:Remember, Dr. Saperstein is a great doctor.
Marc:Catch-22.
Marc:He was hilarious in that, as I recall.
Marc:Heaven Can Wait.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Seems like old times.
Marc:Chevy Chase, hilarious.
Marc:He was great.
Marc:The Lonely Guy, an unsung masterpiece, really.
Marc:I don't know how to call it a masterpiece, but his performance in it as the guy on the bench, great.
Marc:Midnight Run, great.
Marc:All those appearances he did on Letterman was great.
Marc:I mean, he was just so fucking funny.
Marc:And The Heartbreak Kid is one of my favorite fucking movies.
Marc:And he's been in it for a long time.
Marc:And he was always so consistent and so consistently unique and unto himself, whether it was dramatic or comedic.
Marc:He was like a defining guy for me.
Marc:I used to love seeing him.
Marc:I watched some clips yesterday, just a brief encounter, just stuff of him on talk shows.
Marc:And so uniquely fucking hilarious.
Marc:And he had a great career.
Marc:I don't know if he had a great life.
Marc:Don't know him.
Marc:From what I do know, I'm sure it was always challenging.
Marc:But that might just be a character.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But he will be missed.
Marc:He was one of the great funny fuckers for sure.
Marc:We lost somebody else this week.
Marc:Paul Mooney passed away.
Marc:I don't know the details on that.
Marc:I know he had been battling with some illnesses.
Marc:And he was a very influential guy.
Marc:He was Richard Pryor's very good friend back in the day.
Marc:Co-wrote Jojo Dancer with Pryor.
Marc:I think worked on some of Pryor's hours with him.
Marc:They were buddies.
Marc:He was a comedy store regular.
Marc:He was a legend at the comedy store.
Marc:I mean, when I was a doorman,
Marc:The thing about Mooney is that he always did those late spots.
Marc:It was almost like the second to the last spot or it was always late.
Marc:And all the guys, you know, the heavy cats, Kenison, you know, most of the comics who were trying to push the envelope would creep in to watch Mooney from the back of the room.
Marc:Because back then the store at that hour, it sort of it kind of spreads out, kind of lightens up.
Marc:And Mooney would just hold court, kind of not hold court, not teach a class, but just do Mooney.
Marc:Mooney had this like aggressive charm and an incredible ability to talk about race and in a confrontational and provocative way.
Marc:But for some reason, he was able you were able to process it.
Marc:And he didn't fuck around, man.
Marc:And just watching him do that stuff.
Marc:do that work as a door guy back then it was it was kind of amazing no one owned the stage like that guy and he was he went relatively he was relatively obscure for many years many years until chappelle kind of made him brought him to the forefront i tell a story about mooney because he was a button pusher man
Marc:And I featured for him in Sacramento.
Marc:I don't even know what year it could have been.
Marc:But I was the middle act and he was the headliner at the punchline.
Marc:I must have been living in San Francisco.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:In the 90s, early 90s maybe?
Marc:But I don't know that I fully understood the power of Mooney.
Marc:You don't really understand the power of Mooney until you see him.
Marc:You work a week with him.
Marc:And you get to watch him do two hours in front of a primarily white audience in Sacramento.
Marc:And he would stretch out.
Marc:Like on the Wednesday, Thursday, he had all the time in the world on the late show, stretch out.
Marc:I mean, take it up to closing time.
Marc:A couple hours, man, just going at it.
Marc:And I couldn't understand why.
Marc:It wasn't like he was necessarily killing.
Marc:But I believe what he did was if you don't think you're a racist, he's going to find it in you.
Marc:He's like, N-word this, N-word that, whitey this, whitey that.
Marc:And come hour two of that, I think that what he liked to do was just get those white people right at the edge of it and keep going until they heard in their mind and in their heart or actually out of their mouth to who they're sitting with say, when is this N-word going to shut up?
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:He's black.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I think his job and part of what he did was push the buttons for you to be introduced to your little racist.
Marc:He was something else, man.
Marc:I haven't seen him in a long time, and I'm sorry I didn't get to interview him, but rest in peace.
Marc:Paul Mooney, take a break.
Marc:Charles Grodin, going to miss you guys.
Marc:It's weird, even though...
Marc:People may not be in the public eye much after a certain age.
Marc:You know what happens when they go is you reflect on the place they had in your life.
Marc:The place they had for years in your life.
Marc:Even if you haven't seen them lately.
Marc:You just always assume they were here.
Marc:And they are here and they will be here for you if you want to go engage with them.
Marc:But now it's different.
Marc:Before they were here and they were here.
Marc:Now they're here and they're gone.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:ricky lee jones her new memoir last chance texaco is available uh wherever you get books and if you want to hear ricky lee tell her own story she reads the audiobook version um she was in new orleans the magical dark city this is me talking to ricky lee jones
Marc:Hey.
Guest:Hey, Mark.
Marc:How are you, Ricky Lee Jones?
Guest:I'm good.
Marc:The real Ricky Lee Jones?
Guest:That's right, the real thing.
Marc:You are the real thing.
Marc:I can't believe I'm talking to you.
Marc:I can't believe it.
Marc:I remember that first record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was like a world-changing event.
Guest:Were you like 12 when it came out?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What was that, 79?
Marc:79?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:I was like 16, 17 years old.
Marc:It was a big deal.
Guest:It was a really big deal, wasn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was like no one had ever heard anything like it before in the mainstream world.
Guest:All that's left is us to remember.
Marc:Well, the songs are still there.
Marc:That's the weird thing about music is that you can always go back and hear it.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's still floating around.
Guest:I see music almost architecturally.
Guest:So they're exactly the same rooms they ever were.
Guest:You can go into them and move about.
Marc:Can you go to that place in time in your mind?
Marc:Or is it just, you know, you just have a feeling, you know?
Guest:When I perform, probably when I sing, but definitely when I perform, it's exactly the same as it ever was.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:It's the same as it ever was.
Marc:Is that good or bad?
Guest:It's dramatic.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Oh, that's weird.
Marc:It is almost like an intentional PTSD where you are reliving.
Guest:Exactly.
Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:For the audience's benefit.
Guest:And for mine.
Guest:I mean, it, you know, so this thing happens where only my vibraphonist, Mike Dillon, knows about this because he'll look over at me as it's happening.
Guest:He can sense it.
Guest:But when I'm at the piano playing the songs from Pirates.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I guess this is what PTSD is, but I I begin to have this almost hallucinatory experience where the sound becomes Doppler and it's visceral, difficult.
Guest:And it's been gone on for a couple of years now.
Guest:So I just roll with it.
Guest:But it's intense.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So like specifically because that was there was a lot of emotions in that record as a breakup record, too.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was.
Guest:But the music has, I don't know, you know, I've come to think that the songs are filled with our intention or there's something living that goes into some of this music.
Guest:And so maybe some of the tears of the time, but something that lives long past that sorrow.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, there's a well, I've always thought about that as somebody who does performing.
Marc:But, you know, I'm a comedian is that, you know, no one really goes back too often to old comedy bits.
Marc:But music seems to evolve with people as they grow up, you know, and it takes on different meaning through their lives.
Marc:And, you know, some of it's nostalgic and some of it is unexplainable.
Marc:But but once it's in there, it's in there.
Guest:That's totally true, except that I sometimes go back and watch Richard Pryor.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's not just that it's funny.
Guest:It's something about living through the first time a comedian said these things and crossed those barriers.
Guest:That's thrilling to see it.
Marc:Oh, yeah, and also with comedy, I guess, not unlike music, but I think music is more consistent in its magic.
Marc:You can listen to a song four times in a row, really, if you feel like it.
Marc:You can't do that with a joke, really.
Marc:But there are certain expressions that certain comics make.
Marc:There are certain moments in stand-up or in comedy that you could watch a few times.
Marc:But you don't want to do it too much because you want it to keep working.
Marc:So you've got to watch it, get the laugh, shelve it for a few years.
Yeah.
Guest:No, you said the word, it's magic, that thing in music that heals us and transports us.
Marc:Well, I mean, I listened to We Belong Together yesterday because I knew I was going to talk to you, and it made me fucking choke up.
Marc:And I didn't even live through whatever you lived through.
Marc:But it speaks to something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that the only record that you have it with, that PTSD?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's all the things at the piano.
Guest:So once it starts, it bleeds into everything at the piano.
Guest:I wondered...
Guest:Is the piano in a place in the theater where the sound travels in a weird place?
Guest:Why does it happen at the piano and never at the guitar stage front?
Guest:There's a tune or two on piano from the first record, but I think it might just be pirates.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I might have told you more than I should have.
Marc:Why?
Marc:What could happen?
Guest:You know, one of the worst things you can do is tell people that you're...
Guest:unstable oh people want stability especially you know if you're going to perform for them that's why i loved frank sinatra because i could depend on frank opening his arms and embracing us and taking us exactly where we want to go and then dropping us back off again that's very interesting what the audience does not want to know that i've decided to turn left and i don't know where i'm going but come on with me
Marc:Well, but see, I don't know that they would have noticed that or if they listen to this, they'll be looking for it, but they won't notice.
Marc:But I mean, that's an interesting thing that you say, you know, because I was thinking about you and I was thinking about the influence you wielded at a time, you know, for women, for songwriters.
Marc:And that's like, I am uncomfortable with certain people because I don't feel that they are stable, but they're geniuses and their music is great, but I have a hard time listening to them because I feel the instability.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I think I'm pretty stable now and I think I'm pretty consistent on stage because I've been inconsistent and it didn't bring me any satisfaction.
Guest:Some of the exciting things about, one of the exciting things about living a lifetime is
Guest:as a performer, is that you can insist that some of your diehard fans go with you wherever you want to go.
Guest:Well, you insist it by going and seeing who comes with you.
Guest:And I did that, and
Guest:I don't regret it.
Guest:I mean, I love exploring music, but it's difficult to market someone who keeps changing what it is they do.
Guest:We're in popular music, and that part's been hard.
Guest:But I love all the different things that I've gone to do.
Guest:And I love pirates, but it's not my favorite child.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, because, you know, it came from it came from pain.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:But I mean, you've never it doesn't see it doesn't strike me that you're inconsistent emotionally on stage.
Marc:I mean, making different musical choices or taking risk.
Marc:I mean, you're you're a fucking pro.
Marc:So like, you know, it's not like, you know, you're going to lose your mind in the middle of a song.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did once.
Marc:Was it wait in Germany?
Guest:No, that was they lost their minds, not me.
Guest:I had this thing happen with just too much pressure where I thought there was a giant leprechaun laying out on one of the seats.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:I thought that damn leprechaun again.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:When I went off stage and went out to collect myself, somebody said, no, there is a guy.
Guest:He is laying across all the seats.
Guest:It was just funny what I did with it.
Guest:There's a magical being watching me.
Marc:When was that?
Guest:1983 at the Universal Amphitheater.
Marc:No drugs involved?
Guest:No, no drugs.
Guest:Just too much pressure.
Marc:Was that on the third record?
Guest:That was the third record, and it was...
Guest:promoting the magazine, which was, I'd done this theater piece, Exorcising the Demons of Addiction.
Guest:These stories my father had told me about the war, his scorpion story, and telling a story to myself about what had led me to that table with that needle.
Guest:I made up a character called Gloria in the Kitchen.
Guest:So it was a very emotional and wonderful piece.
Guest:But the manager I had kept booking me in big music venues like the Amplitheater.
Guest:And he wouldn't book me in any theaters where the audience and I would have been more comfortable.
Guest:So...
Guest:I was struggling with what I wanted to go into theater or into acting or spread my wings to write for movies or something.
Guest:And I think in this show, I just had too much on the line.
Guest:I was thinking this show will take me where I want to go.
Guest:And that was a lesson hard learned because no show is more valuable than another.
Guest:No show takes you where you want to go.
Guest:You have to get this Zen thing about whether you're in Pittsburgh or New York City, every show has equilibrium.
Guest:And no show serves a larger purpose ever.
Guest:Or I will mess it up if it does.
Guest:And that was a lesson I learned.
Marc:Well, it also sounds like you're on the precipice of a lot of things personally, but also wanting to, you know, branch out your creativity that, you know, you were seeing something bigger than music as a possibility and being not feeling secure in an environment where you wanted to take certain risks is, you know, a little bit terrifying.
Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And also in 1983, so I'd had a really big and wonderful rise.
Guest:And by 83, I think I felt I was falling.
Guest:My guy at Warner Brothers, Barbara Gere.
Guest:was dying.
Guest:And he was a great interpreter of how to sell an act to the public.
Guest:He did myself, Laurie Anderson, the Sex Pistols and Prince.
Guest:Those were his.
Guest:And when he died, all those acts kind of...
Guest:Wobbled?
Guest:Fluttered in midair.
Guest:So with the passing of him and the Madonna dance stuff rising and all the hope of this intelligent, wonderful music coming from women,
Guest:Just going down the drain.
Guest:I think I just went, it's over.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:And you got to move to another line of work or you're fucked, you know.
Guest:This is my own insecurity.
Guest:It probably had a little bit to do with what was going on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The fact that I survived and kept recreating myself and hung in there so that now I'm 66 years old and we're talking about it means I found a way to do it.
Guest:But I could feel myself falling from the very top and there was nothing I could do.
Marc:Well, I mean, I can't imagine the pressure of that, of being, I mean, you were on the cover of Rolling Stone a couple of times.
Marc:Those records were huge and your image was huge and people knew who you were and you were very unique and still are.
Marc:But I mean, to be at that level of success and visibility and to see the cultural tastes or whatever's being pushed change so dramatically has got to be horrendous, daunting and terrifying.
Guest:It was hard.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because like, I mean, because then like it's one of those things like I'm fortunate as a performer to never have gotten very famous.
Marc:And I just kind of chip away at my own thing.
Marc:Is this it?
Marc:This the one's going to break me, Ricky.
Marc:This is going to take me over the top.
Marc:But even I see I still feel that pressure a little bit, but it's hard to just say, like, I do what I do and I'm happy with it and I've got my people and I'm going to keep doing it.
Marc:And that's that.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:But I didn't have my people.
Guest:And I think I was in a long... I hate to harken back to this, but I think I was in a long free fall after my breakup with weights.
Guest:It happened in such a moment as my career was going, whoa, that broke.
Guest:And so I just didn't have...
Guest:a strong enough self-worth, I guess.
Marc:Sense of self, yeah.
Guest:Or I'm one of those women who just loved or loves or loved that person as much as myself.
Guest:And without him in my story, I just didn't know how to write it.
Guest:And I figured it out after a couple years, but they were crucial years in a career, you know.
Guest:The hard part is that I judge myself.
Guest:And so sometimes you read a shitty thing, some stranger writes.
Guest:That doesn't matter.
Guest:I judge myself.
Marc:Well, it only matters if they tell you exactly what you think of yourself.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Then it's like, oh, they know.
Marc:Well, I mean, let's talk about that, because I don't, like, it sounds like at the amphitheater, so you had gotten, you'd kicked drugs, is that what part of that was?
Guest:I had, yeah, and I had a lot of guilt about having taken drugs when I could have, you know, been the, what they were calling me, like, the girl next door, but I was also really sexy, and any way you want to go, that's where I was, and
Guest:So I had a lot of guilt about disappointing so many people that I actually knew, much less the concept of fans who hadn't really entered my circle yet.
Guest:So I was ashamed.
Marc:Well, I mean, yeah, hiding that thing is hard.
Marc:So where does it start?
Marc:Where are you now?
Marc:You're not living out here anymore?
Guest:I'm in New Orleans.
Guest:Where are you living?
Marc:Glendale.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's nice up there now.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I love it here.
Marc:I'm okay where I live.
Marc:But New Orleans, I just talked to a kid yesterday who grew up in New Orleans.
Marc:So you're down there all the time now?
Marc:That's your home?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I've been living here seven or eight years.
Guest:And I lived here for a while in the 80s, so I've got to see the city in little bits, like slices of earth as it changed.
Guest:And I love it here.
Guest:It's good for me.
Guest:It's a really big little town.
Guest:And it's a musical town.
Guest:Well...
Guest:It doesn't take very long to travel.
Guest:And that's in L.A.
Guest:If you're going to go anywhere, you've got to commit to 45 minutes at least.
Guest:So the music thing, it does have an intrinsic music that grows up out of it.
Guest:And the youngsters are carrying tubas and brass instruments to and from school.
Guest:But the other thing that's happening are...
Guest:Young people are coming from out of town, attracted to this traditional jazz idea, and they're creating a new, weird music.
Guest:I saw two girls singing, you know, like Skylark or something, and one of them had a saw.
Guest:One was singing with the saw, while a traditional trio backed them up.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And it was very wonderful for the first song.
Guest:And then it was like, this is not working.
Guest:But I was thrilled that they're trying and creating new real music.
Guest:That's exciting.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:And it's nice that someone's playing the saw again.
Marc:You just don't, there's not enough of that.
Guest:And not with traditional ballads either.
Marc:So the first time you went to New Orleans, was that when you did the song with Dr. John?
Guest:No, Dr. John, well, I don't know if he sent me here, but he sent me to visit people here when I came.
Guest:That song with Dr. John was 89 or 88.
Guest:But I came here in 79 when I first performed here and then returned to visit
Marc:The next year and stayed when you say when he told you people to go see there was that that was the drug time.
Marc:He sets you up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dr. John, I think, was a little notorious for that in a good and bad way.
Marc:So but you come from where?
Marc:Where do you come from?
Guest:you mean where where did i hail from yeah where'd you grow up yeah was it chicago i grew up in chicago well no i was born there we left there when i was four moved to phoenix arizona really phoenix wow there's like an underground railroad from chicago to phoenix directly because of the waiters and waitresses right out of the restaurant
Marc:I thought you meant for the air.
Marc:I know there was a while there were people who had tuberculosis or sensitive lungs would move to Phoenix.
Guest:They sent their sinuses to Arizona.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But I was going through the book and I landed on a few things.
Marc:But I mean, it seems like you come from a very show busy kind of past.
Guest:Well, I come from an American past, the vaudevillians.
Guest:And as I went to write the book, I just, although I feel like emotionally we tell a universal story, but my family's decidedly American, you know, traveling up and down Route 66, Vaudeville, Chicago, the middle of the desert.
Guest:So that was the story.
Guest:That was where I, one of the seeds I started with is I'm going to tell this story of an American family.
Marc:But it's interesting to me that the type of music that it seems that, you know, was part of your family is is really the because I think your music is uniquely American and you can feel the history of certainly the early records.
Marc:I mean, most of the records all the way through back to, you know, what your family comes from.
Guest:That's right, that's right.
Guest:My grandfather was a vaudevillian, and my Uncle Bob was an extraordinary jazz guitarist.
Guest:And I couldn't help but think that he must have learned this from the grandfather, who was a ukulele player.
Guest:My father, a jazz singer, trumpet player, artist all around, who taught me to sing.
Guest:I also listened to the records he listened to.
Guest:But the main thing about my singing, besides not much of a vibrato and a tone that's not really so different than when I am speaking, I don't make it.
Guest:So I have that.
Guest:But he always came in behind the beat.
Guest:And that's the main thing about me is that a rock singer is right on the beat, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the jazz singer will be sitting in the back of the beat.
Marc:Well, it's interesting you bring up that Free song, because I listened to the cover of Bad Company.
Marc:I love that Free.
Marc:Well, I mean, you covered Bad Company by Bad Company, right?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Marc:I did.
Marc:And it's funny, because that song, you can sing behind the beat on that one.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And I guess he was a little bit jazzy himself.
Guest:I also covered...
Guest:rebel rebel acoustically i love that i like i like to go wherever i want to go and um one reasons i did bad company is because when i would when i was on uh on stage and i'd introduce the song people would laugh so i thought wow you know this is so unexpected that ricky lee jones would do bad company i think i'm going to record it so
Marc:but it's weird because like you know there's a snobbery around certain you know bands there is that i grew up with i mean i've got all the bad company albums i'll still listen to some paul rogers he's fucking great but you know like if you don't tell people they're not the wiser because they don't even know they don't know bad company from bad company
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know where the snobbery was going.
Guest:I guess it is snobbery, but it's more that marketing thing where we've been so over-marketed to, you do this kind of music, they do that kind of music.
Guest:And if you blend them, I'm going to be embarrassed.
Guest:It's like you're naked.
Marc:Or even if you listen to them.
Marc:People get an idea of a band.
Marc:Before they know anything about it, they dismiss it because of how it's branded.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I felt like I suffered from that a little bit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Everybody does.
Marc:But I mean, like, in my mind, how could you not love ACDC?
Marc:Who would judge ACDC?
Marc:But that's just me.
Yeah.
Guest:Or Bad Company, even.
Marc:But he's a good guitar player.
Guest:I could never scream.
Guest:So, you know, Janis Joplin, ACDC, all that.
Guest:That was harder.
Guest:I love Janis.
Guest:But it all comes from Led Zeppelin, right?
Guest:And that guy, even though he kind of...
Guest:screamed he always great screamed in a melody he's like the top of the pyramid of that he's he's so great and i love led zeppelin but all of the followers of led zeppelin from guns and roses to all of it to me were i can relate i get it so you're in phoenix you grow up in phoenix in the hot desert in that sort of weird land of strip malls and and uh
Marc:I know Phoenix pretty well.
Marc:I had family in Phoenix for years.
Marc:And, you know, what drives you out here?
Marc:I mean, what are you doing in Phoenix?
Marc:Are you singing?
Guest:Well, my family moved there when I was a little girl.
Guest:I was five.
Guest:So I grew up there.
Marc:But was there a point where you knew you had to get out?
Marc:Were the 60s happening?
Marc:What was blowing your mind, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They moved all the time.
Guest:They moved every year, every other year.
Guest:By the time I left school, I had gone to 11 schools.
Guest:And when I ran away from home in 1969,
Guest:My family had disintegrated.
Guest:My mother had left my dad and my dad had become violent.
Guest:So I caught a plane to be a part of 1969 and hitchhike up and down the highway and be a hippie and be a grownup.
Guest:I really wanted out of that teenage outfit.
Marc:Yeah, how old were you?
Guest:14.
Marc:You ran away when you were 14?
Marc:Was your dad a drunk or what?
Guest:My dad was an alcoholic.
Guest:That's what we like to call him.
Guest:He drank all his life.
Guest:And, you know, this is hard because I want to protect the... You know, I can hear my mother going, you're telling too much.
Guest:I want to protect the dignity of the family.
Guest:That's one of the things the book did well, which was to say...
Guest:people are complicated yeah and nobody is evil right nobody is great this was a really bad thing he did but he didn't always do bad things right there's a bad month for him and me and i took off but but two months later he saved my life so parents are complicated and mine especially wait what happened
Guest:He followed me.
Guest:So I ran away from home and I'm traveling up Highway 1 and my dad is on my trail.
Guest:I don't know how he found the people I stayed with in San Diego, but he did.
Guest:And from then they said, I think she's going to Santa Cruz.
Guest:So he drove to Santa Cruz.
Guest:And he's on my tail.
Guest:And when I was arrested in Sunnyvale, which then was just a big desert, and taken to juvie, my father was nearby in the Pontiac Catalina looking for his daughter.
Guest:So he rescued me.
Guest:what'd they pick you up for hitchhiking they you know i was hitchhiking and they decided they thought i was a minor yeah and you were right yeah it was never made it to san francisco oh never made it to the summer of love so you went back to phoenix i went to olympia washington oh my god your dad ended up there no my mom had gone there
Marc:That's pretty up there.
Guest:And so we stayed, well, it used to be anyway.
Guest:We stayed for my high school years.
Marc:When did you start singing?
Guest:I always sing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Always sing, yeah, since I was little.
Guest:So what did you like about my music when you first heard it?
Guest:Who did you think I was?
Marc:Well, I just thought that there was like, there was some sort of timelessness to it.
Marc:And I, you know, and I was, you know, I had somehow gotten a box of records from, there was a record store next to where I worked in high school that was primarily an R&B shop.
Marc:And so all the rock records and anything that wasn't R&B, they put into a box.
Marc:And I was given a box of records that had Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner in it.
Marc:And like I'd never heard anything like that.
Marc:And it was, you know, fairly kind of classic mode of kind of, you know, lounge singing.
Marc:And then like sort of that sort of primed the pump somehow.
Marc:And I remember that, you know, I didn't know that you two were together, but I put that that there was a scene that was happening and there was a type of.
Marc:There was a type of timeless kind of like jazz music that was accessible and also sexy and, you know, the cigarettes and the sort of the idea of people staying up late and eating French fries and, you know, the whole thing.
Marc:It all played through you two, I think.
Marc:So, I mean, so it was sort of like an aspiration, like, you know, like there's people out there doing this, you know.
Yeah.
Guest:So the reason I wrote the book, besides wanting to correct other people's versions of my life, recognizing that if I didn't write something, that's all that would be left when I was gone, was because I know the stories of my family are extraordinary stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that I could tell my story better if I placed it among their stories.
Guest:That there'd be some redemption for the grandfather and the grandmother and the questionable deaths and questionable behaviors.
Guest:And if we tell the story, if we show the whole arc of their lives.
Marc:Do you live in a train station?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:You can hear it.
Guest:I got a little aluminum roof, a tin roof next to me.
Guest:It's really New Orleans.
Guest:I have four houses from the... This is where they come to... The train comes, it goes back, it comes, it goes back.
Guest:This is where they attach new cars onto the train.
Guest:It's been very active all night long.
Guest:I dreamed I was singing.
Guest:It was the train.
Woo!
Marc:So, OK, so you wanted to put yourself in context with the story of your family and their their sort of journey in America, you know, for better or for worse.
Marc:You know, all the way back to, you know, your your your grandfather, your great grandfather's store through the music, through the burlesque.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And you wanted to place your narrative within the narrative of the struggle of your family.
Yeah.
Guest:Because it's a chance for me to make a great or good piece of art for the first time.
Guest:Because I've never written a book.
Guest:So, you know, when you first met me and I debuted, it was so exciting.
Guest:And now I've been around 40 years.
Guest:There's no way I can introduce myself new to it with any kind of art except a book.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So we can talk about the book as if we've never done it before.
Guest:And I just knew that that was the only way I could possibly talk about myself without being like a cliche.
Guest:I can't hear any memoir that doesn't say he or she overcame drugs.
Guest:All right, that's a given.
Guest:We all are overcoming drugs.
Guest:Opioid epidemic, everybody's overcoming drugs.
Guest:And whatever thing that we have to overcome.
Guest:But what's unique about my story is also what's universal in everybody's story.
Guest:that they're good and bad and the uniqueness of the vaudevillians and the fact that my family moved every 27 minutes to a new house and I never understood why.
Guest:The violence that I witnessed and overcame.
Guest:So I know what I learned that I do want to share.
Guest:This writer named Bill Flanagan said,
Guest:Rikki Lee Jones loses her virginity in a utility shed outside of a house, and she walks out and says, what a dream I had, dressed in organdy, clothed in crinoline.
Guest:And that was the first time I really saw a mirror.
Guest:That's exactly who I am.
Guest:No matter what the circumstances are, I'm living this wonderful life made of music and lyrics I've heard.
Guest:I always do and always have.
Guest:It protects me and lifts me and saves me.
Guest:And that's what the book, writing the book, showed me.
Marc:Wow, that's beautiful.
Marc:I recently talked to another woman songwriter recently who actually has a disassociative disorder and the music is another plane entirely to her that she is free from trauma in.
Guest:I could understand that.
Guest:I mean, I don't know how to express where music is for me and what it is, but it sure is a safe place to go.
Marc:It's a beautiful way to put it, and I can feel that.
Marc:I mean, even if I sing a song or play a guitar or whatever, I mean, it's a meditative place.
Marc:But it's also interesting to me that part of the incentive was like, because I, you know, I've been sober a long time and embracing the history of the problem, but also embracing the lives that surround it without judgment is a unique approach.
Marc:So because then you at least get delivered here with an explanation that's not pathological, it just is.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:But along that path and writing this because you wrote it alone, you didn't you know, you didn't write it with somebody else because you're a writer.
Marc:You know, your songs are our stories.
Marc:A lot of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, with full, you know, with full narratives.
Marc:So like as soon as you put a pen to paper, you start typing about your family or your experience.
Marc:You're sort of reintroducing yourself to yourself.
Guest:Many of the stories I've told myself many, many years.
Guest:They are mythological in shape and size.
Guest:Which ones in particular?
Guest:Well, so, well, the father and mother stories.
Marc:Right, sure.
Guest:Mythological.
Marc:The creation myths.
Guest:Some of the stories that are huge, I didn't put in the book because they're too terrible.
Guest:I put in one terrible thing because I wanted everybody to have a good journey.
Guest:Good trip.
Guest:Most women are molested or somebody tries to hurt them.
Guest:I don't know anybody who's totally escaped that.
Guest:But people have tried to kidnap and kill me more than once walking down the street.
Guest:And I thought, if I put that in, that's going to tilt the weight that causes people to think, did that really happen?
Guest:Are all the things that will happen?
Guest:I'll just include one.
Guest:And the one where the federales come and I get away is an incredible story.
Guest:So there are private stories that are mythological in their shape that were in the early versions of the book that as I shaped it and shaped it, I thought, you don't need to tell everything and you must protect the reader so they can have a wonderful journey.
Guest:And that was what I did.
Marc:Without necessarily lying or avoiding anything, you're just picking the ones that will not stop them and break their heart too early.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:A pretty bowl of fruit.
Guest:I picked it all.
Marc:A slightly damaged bowl of fruit, but pretty.
Guest:You know, a lot of people have been saying to me, your childhood was so hard.
Guest:But I've never thought of my childhood as hard.
Guest:I thought of my brother's accident as hard.
Guest:But...
Guest:Children normalize everything.
Guest:And I don't think many of us go, my life was hard.
Guest:Your life is the life you've lived.
Guest:And it's normal compared to what was it hard?
Marc:And oddly, you know, it is normal to the degree that all humans experience tragedy, experience death, experience, you know, violence.
Marc:Most of them.
Marc:I mean, it's just it is.
Marc:It's life.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:What happened to your brother?
Guest:My brother had a terrible motorcycle accident, a devastating accident when I was 10.
Guest:And my parents fell apart.
Guest:This led to this alcoholism and violence and my mother and...
Guest:So this family that had been pressed together and hopeful, they weren't functioning that well, but we were a family disintegrated after his accident.
Guest:That's what happened.
Marc:And is he alive?
Guest:He's alive, yes.
Guest:He lost a leg and he had a lot of brain damage.
Guest:He had to learn to speak and use his body again.
Guest:He was a football player.
Guest:So there was so much mourning and grief for what might have been.
Guest:It was very hard for anybody to go, all right, well, that's not going to be, but something else will be.
Guest:And it was made worse because I had a premonition about the accident a few days before it.
Guest:And I told my brother and my mother about it.
Guest:So when the accident happened, it was really hard for me.
Guest:even though I knew I didn't cause it, I couldn't help but think that if I hadn't followed the rabbit down the rabbit hole of the premonition that somehow it might not have happened.
Marc:So that was hard.
Marc:That's a big burden for a 10 year old.
Marc:When do you decide, what makes you decide to sort of move to California?
Marc:What was the beginning of that?
Marc:Because that seems like the rebirth there from this childhood.
Guest:Well, I wanted to, you know, when I ran away to California, well, all the music is there and the hippies are there and the acid is there and the communes are there.
Guest:So I ran away almost every summer.
Guest:And then when I was 16, my mother let me go.
Guest:And on one of my trips, I met...
Guest:This guy named Mark Vaughn in Seal Beach and a guy from The Weathermen and all kinds of interesting characters.
Guest:But the friend Mark Vaughn from Seal Beach I ended up moving in with in Venice, California.
Guest:In 1972, when it was still empty, there was a synagogue at one end with people with tattoos on their arms, old men and women who'd sit.
Guest:And at this end were black men playing congas.
Guest:There was one place a business opened and they sold hot dogs, a couple of female entrepreneurs.
Guest:And it was the beginning of life for me, living in Venice at that time.
Guest:I remember it so beautifully.
Guest:And by the time I left, when I was 22,
Guest:you know, the outside was moving in.
Guest:But it was a wonderful moment.
Marc:And that's where you started to kind of come into your own musically?
Guest:You know, when I first started, I wasn't very good at all.
Guest:I wanted to be.
Guest:But I'd always sang, but I was a terrible songwriter.
Guest:And I gravitated towards really depressed songs like Loudon Wainwright, Old Lady Blues and stuff.
Guest:But when I...
Guest:decided to write a story about somebody I'd never met doing something I'd never done, which was easy money, I hit upon something far bigger than I could have ever done if I just talked about myself.
Guest:So in creating fiction, I was able to tell my story and be funny and smart, and that's how I talk about myself.
Guest:You know, it's easy to make it up.
Guest:You just sit and watch people.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And see what's going on and take it home and make up your own story.
Marc:And that started happening in Venice.
Guest:Yeah, it did.
Marc:And how does it sort of evolve from there?
Marc:Who were you working with in Venice?
Marc:Did you have a band?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:That was a really bad time for me.
Guest:I was working at a coffee place by the bus stop.
Guest:I'd make about 25 cents, 30 cents per person in tips and come home with $7 or something.
Guest:My mom would send me five bucks to get through the month.
Guest:So at that, in living in that one room place, I'd save enough to go get a cup of coffee.
Guest:And then I'd sit there as long as I could, drinking that coffee and writing.
Marc:How'd you get discovered?
Marc:I mean, where were you?
Marc:How'd that go?
Guest:Well, I wrote Easy Money, and I started working with this songwriter named Alfred Johnson.
Guest:Have you heard of him?
Marc:No.
Guest:He's a guy about town.
Marc:Oh, no, I don't know him.
Guest:He was a young black singer-songwriter who liked...
Guest:I like to tell this story because he liked Buffalo Springfield.
Guest:And I liked Marvin Gaye.
Guest:He wasn't interested in Marvin Gaye.
Guest:I liked Buffalo.
Guest:So we came through cultural doors that were generally forbidden
Guest:on racial terms.
Guest:He wouldn't have a Buffalo Springfield record in his home.
Guest:He had to hear it from somebody else.
Guest:And I heard Marvin Gaye on the jukebox at the pool hall.
Guest:So we met in the middle of this wonderful amalgamation of
Guest:American music coming through all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.
Guest:And we wrote Company and Weasel, The Bridge and Weasel and the White Boys Cool.
Guest:And when we started to write together, I was also homeless at the time, sleeping on people's couches, something began to happen.
Guest:And Easy Money...
Guest:So my friend Ivan Alls knew Lowell George and he called Lowell George and said, I got this song I think you should hear.
Guest:And Lowell came over a day or two later, brought his little Sony recorder and recorded me singing Easy Money.
Guest:He came back one week later.
Guest:with the reel-to-reel of the, not him singing on it, but just the track, the musical track.
Guest:He said, this is going to be my single.
Guest:Just like that, in one week.
Guest:From there to there.
Guest:Well, to have a great songwriter say, you're the songwriter, you little unknown girl there.
Guest:I thought, if nothing else ever happens to me, this happened.
Guest:And it will always be this, that Lowell said he was going to do my song.
Guest:And from there, good luck, good luck, good luck just kept coming.
Marc:Was Lowell a sweet guy?
Marc:So sweet.
Marc:So sweet.
Marc:I listen to those first couple of Little Feet records sometimes.
Marc:They're really amazing.
Guest:He's so charming.
Marc:Oh my goodness.
Marc:And then it just took off, huh?
Guest:So I don't know why, but even though he recorded this song and it was hopeful, we were driving around together in the canyon and
Guest:It was like I was being born.
Guest:It was a very sad time.
Guest:I was crying a lot.
Guest:Because I think a possible new future was trying to be born.
Guest:And it was, how do I get there?
Guest:I can feel it.
Guest:How do I get out of being poor and ending up a waitress?
Guest:How do I get there?
Guest:And...
Guest:The only way to get there is to write a great song.
Guest:You gotta go write a song.
Guest:How do I write a great song?
Guest:So in one week I wrote Last Chance Texaco and Chucky's in Love by sheer force of will.
Guest:When I wrote the lyric to Last Chance Texaco, I only know these many chords, so I said to myself,
Guest:You have to write it in a key you've never written in.
Guest:You got to try to go somewhere you've never gone.
Guest:So I hit an F sharp.
Guest:Who plays F sharp?
Guest:I don't know about you, but that hurts my fingers.
Marc:It's hard to play an F sharp.
Marc:It's a bar chord, yeah.
Marc:Without a capo, it's tough.
Guest:The song was waiting there.
Guest:As soon as I played the F sharp, it took me up and down and delivered me there.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:That's a little bit of magic.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But at that point, you knew Chucky and that crew?
Guest:yeah yeah i did and they were real hot and cold you know they'd see me you know they're very sexist misogynist guys that's a given and they all hang out together and they love each other and girls aren't welcome where were they were hanging out in short skirt in front of the troubadour oh okay who was in that crew paul brody yeah
Guest:Bodie Brody Bodie yeah but and Rick Dubov who is also called Bebop the manager of the troubadour had long hair but I remember his name Chucky Wise Tom Waits and those are the five guys I remember there might have been others but those and you would go over there to see shows or like how'd you hook up with those guys
Guest:I think I just, because I was lonely, so I'd just go over and sit at the bar or stand around on the outside of them and see if anybody talked to me.
Guest:And sometimes they'd be friendly and sometimes they were like, get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Who are you?
Guest:What's your name again?
Guest:Really unkind.
Guest:So depending on how they felt and what was happening in their lives, they treated me accordingly.
Marc:Did they know your music or they just knew you as this girl that hung out?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I was a cool looking girl.
Guest:I wore a beret and fuchsia gloves.
Guest:I only wore 1940s clothes.
Guest:So I was noticeable, I imagined, but a weirdo, no doubt.
Marc:And what were the shows at the Troubadour at that point?
Guest:There was a lot of punk rock.
Guest:Black Flag and some heavy metal guys in big boots and hair.
Guest:So it was a mixture.
Guest:They were fighting each other out for the stage.
Guest:So this was like 77 or 76?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Well, 78.
Guest:Levi and the Rockettes, Circle Jerks, Minutemen, Black Flag.
Guest:I remember the Black Flag sign a lot.
Guest:And...
Guest:And and then heavy metal guys that probably, you know, came up and went down just as fast.
Guest:A lot of kids.
Marc:Well, that's so wild because that's when that's when you guys are doing your thing.
Marc:It's antithetical.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's the opposite.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It is.
Marc:It's a different.
Marc:It's like those people are kind of like plunging forward into a violent unknown.
Marc:And you guys are going into the past.
Guest:And you say going into, I think of it as a thread from the past.
Guest:Like he's coming out of the past like a character out of a Damon Runyon story.
Guest:Who, Tom?
Guest:I'm coming out like in my mother's makeup.
Guest:But whatever it was, we found more solace and inspiration in the past than what was happening there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So how long was it before you and Tom started hanging out?
Guest:well we had a brief liaison at some point and then um 77 or 78 that's a nice way to put it yeah and then about eight or nine months later we kind of start around the time things started going well for me
Guest:Say the summer before I got signed or after I got signed, we dated kind of.
Guest:Then we broke it off.
Guest:Then in the fall again, we dated.
Guest:And then we broke it off.
Guest:We were on and off again.
Guest:Always.
Guest:It was hard.
Marc:For years?
Guest:for a couple years.
Guest:Not very long, really.
Marc:And this is when he's doing those first few records?
Guest:No, this is Blue Valentine.
Guest:When I met him, he'd just finished Foreign Affairs, I think.
Guest:And he had a story about a foreign affair.
Guest:And then me, the Blue Valentine.
Marc:Oh, that's you.
Marc:That's a good record.
Marc:That's the one where he's on a car in the front.
Marc:Oh, greased up.
Marc:With a girl?
Marc:Yeah, with a girl, yeah.
Guest:I wonder who she is.
Marc:Is it you?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I got to go look at that cover now.
Marc:Well, now, it seems to me that that must have been like you strike me at that time, at least in that in my mind and in my view or my fantasy of it.
Marc:It seemed to all make sense.
Marc:Was there a scene around you guys?
Marc:Was there were there people?
Marc:Did he have fans?
Marc:Did you have fans?
Marc:Was there a world where people have fans?
Guest:I was unknown.
Guest:He had a scene that grew all around him.
Guest:He's a charismatic character and all of the people were drawn to him.
Guest:He'd have fans sleeping in front of his lawn.
Guest:He was very cruel to them, boy or girl.
Guest:They were drawn to him as if it was hard to see, you know, whatever the meaning of fame is or his music.
Guest:They traveled across the country to be near him, and he'd say, get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because, Chuck explained, if you don't do that, they'll stay, and they got to go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I thought they were exceedingly cruel.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:But, you know, as we know, they can be dangerous.
Guest:Who knows what they come seeking.
Guest:But to be clear, it wasn't our scene.
Guest:It was his.
Marc:But like he was you guys were sort of on and off, but kind of together when the first album came out, when your first album came out.
Guest:We were totally on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we were around Saturday Night Live.
Guest:That night, I'd say we started dating again.
Guest:And until the tour, end of my tour, that fateful night when we didn't see each other ever again.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Ever again?
Marc:To this day?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's sad.
Marc:Stupid.
Marc:Stupid.
Marc:After a certain... Yeah.
Marc:You know, that's one thing you realize as you get older.
Guest:It's like, why are we... I mean, we're... At some point about the year of the Los Angeles riots, I said...
Guest:Let's say hello.
Guest:We have history.
Guest:We're part of history.
Guest:Just be friends.
Guest:His wife wouldn't let me in.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Whatever it is, I'm not...
Guest:My presence is so loud that they don't want me near.
Guest:They hadn't found any neutrality.
Guest:Yeah, so welcome.
Guest:Nice to see you.
Guest:Come in.
Guest:And I couldn't understand how they could have hit the jackpot and had family and children and money and success and love and couldn't extend this, hey, Ricky Lee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:great to see you it's weird and it made me think unfortunately i must have remained a living um sore somehow that they didn't let down because i don't want to have a sore i'll go out of my way to say yeah hey right peace you know yeah that's something but you know you definitely transcended and you kept moving forward and you did a lot of great music
Guest:And it's long ago.
Guest:It's little kid stuff for well-seasoned older people.
Guest:And I think it belongs in the beautiful pages of history.
Guest:And it's nothing between us.
Guest:We knew each other many, many years ago.
Guest:And fell in love hard.
Guest:And that should be something like, wow, wasn't that wonderful?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I guess it wasn't.
Marc:Well, it's a weird thing about people in their past and what people protect.
Marc:And, you know, like I think sometimes with that stuff, it's like whether you're the partner of somebody that has that experience with somebody else is that, you know, what you had was pure.
Marc:And what you saw was a vulnerability that no longer exists.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it's almost like you have a secret whether you want it or not.
Marc:And how people, you know, react to knowing that.
Marc:Who the fuck knows?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I figured they probably had to spend a few years getting over the rumor of Ricky Lee Jones.
Guest:So they go to do an interview.
Guest:I know I did.
Guest:I still hear about Tom Williams.
Guest:So for some years, before they forbid the mention of my name, people must have said,
Guest:do you see ricky lee jones and the white person going fuck you you know so you can imagine what went on i i have sympathy for it but i just thought it's so ungenerous not not to give love wherever you can sure and and and to be able to share some memories you know i mean jesus christ that's it that was a big time man
Guest:It was a big time.
Marc:So we're old now.
Marc:Everybody's getting old.
Marc:It's like, it's interesting to listen to like jump in and out of some of the, the evolution of the records.
Marc:Cause you know, I was even like, I was listening a little to, to traffic from, from paradise.
Marc:And like, you know, the musicians on that record, the people that would, you know, come and work with you in the studio was sort of amazing.
Marc:I really think like, I was just listening to, you know, that song to rebel rebel.
Marc:And honestly, I don't think Brian Setzer has ever played as honestly as on that fucking song.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was incredible.
Guest:It was the most sexual guitar playing I've ever heard.
Marc:It was crazy because he's such a flashy kind of dude.
Marc:He can do anything, but you got him dirty somehow.
Marc:I don't know how it happened.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was incredible.
Guest:He played a great big guitar and he just, you know, maybe because it was, I was doing it so wrong, you know, and maybe he doesn't do acoustic stuff.
Guest:So sometimes that'll bring something different out in people.
Guest:But I love that you said that because I think his guitar playing is incredible on them.
Marc:It's unique for him to play like that.
Marc:And, you know, because he's such a virtuoso and he's so kind of meticulous.
Marc:And to hear him sort of break open a little bit and be a little greasy, a little dirty, you know, a little raunchy.
Marc:I was like, wow, that's something.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But that's how he started.
Guest:Levi and the Rockettes and Stray Cats were the two rockabilly bands vying for the crown in 1978 and 79.
Guest:Levi and the Rockettes were British, totally tatted out.
Guest:A little punk rock, but mostly...
Guest:um, rocket rocking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, um, I'm glad that Brian and the stray cats, you know, cause he was so good looking, I guess, but when they first started out, they were raw, they were tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was, it's like, I don't know that I ever, you know, heard it, you know, or paid attention to it.
Marc:Like I did, uh, in, in sort of, you know, getting ready to talk to you.
Marc:And I like these, like, I mean, some of the, the covers are really interesting.
Marc:The covers that you pick, uh,
Marc:I mean, that version, like Sympathy for the Devil is like one of the most important songs ever written.
Marc:And you really made it your own.
Marc:That's not easy.
Guest:Because I thought this is just a blues song and nobody's ever just done it like a blues song with an acoustic guitar.
Guest:But more importantly, it's about evil.
Guest:total evil somebody who laughs as he kills young girls and takes all your money and maybe anybody ever listen to the lyrics because we're so busy going yeah yeah well we're not listening to what this devil is doing so um ben harper produced that and it's you know it's a little
Guest:slower i mean i did that but but if i do it live it's a little faster now because i always start out a little slow but um but i love the chance to um show people the other sides of songs that they don't notice so you got off drugs in the 70s the late 70s
Guest:I took heroin from 1980, more or less, flirting with it the year before, to 1982, flirting with it for a year afterwards.
Guest:So I think I took dope about three years.
Guest:And if you're being really honest, four, though I'm never that honest.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Well, you were lucky to get out.
Marc:Yes, I was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know people who get off of that, they never quite get completely reconfigured.
Marc:It's always a tough one.
Guest:If you stay in there too long...
Guest:I kept this safety all the time.
Guest:I said, I'll never go on stage high.
Guest:I'll never do certain things.
Guest:And if you can keep that, you've kept just a modicum of control.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And you can use that like that never ending story, that little piece of sand to build a new reality when you finally get out.
Guest:I never got high with people.
Guest:I always only got high alone.
Guest:And I felt like that was going to give me the power when I was ready.
Guest:to go out alone.
Guest:If I made it a social thing, it was going to be much, much harder to leave it.
Guest:And as we know, the psychological part is so much harder than the physical part.
Guest:But it's not, you know, once you do it and you get a few years, it's just a thing.
Guest:It's not a moral thing.
Guest:You didn't rape anybody.
Guest:You didn't kill anybody.
Guest:You just, you know...
Guest:Took drugs for a while.
Guest:What's the big deal?
Marc:Who cares?
Marc:And you made it through.
Marc:And so, like, how old's your daughter now?
Guest:33.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:33.
Marc:Did you ever see when you were younger, did you ever think you were going to have kids?
Guest:You know, if you asked me in my 20s, I would have said I don't really relate to kids.
Guest:I wouldn't have.
Guest:I might have hoped I would, but I couldn't imagine myself as a parent.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how did it change your life?
Guest:Well, it makes one must think about another person before one thinks of oneself.
Right.
Guest:And that's not in our nature till we have a child, and then that's in our nature.
Guest:So it's so life-changing and transforming that you can say the words, but unless it happens to you, you can't know what it really is to have instinct to protect another before yourself.
Guest:take over and and in my case it was life-saving because everything was about me me me me me so i was able to make it now it's about you you yeah yeah yeah she turned out okay
Guest:It's a work in progress.
Guest:So we'll see as the future comes.
Guest:But I adore her.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:And the book is really, I think, a great testament to your talent, to your life and to, you know, your story.
Marc:I think it's so nice that you actually were able to have that you were a writer before you wrote the book.
Marc:And you knew you wanted to write it yourself.
Marc:What was the experience with the editor when you were turning in drafts?
Guest:My editor is a woman.
Guest:Well, I had an editor toward the end who actually helped me put the book in order.
Guest:But...
Guest:It was hard for them.
Guest:You know, they wanted a traditional memoir.
Guest:They wanted to start the book with Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And I was like, but don't you get it?
Guest:What about my mom?
Guest:I'm telling this bigger story.
Guest:There's an arc of a grit.
Guest:And they didn't get it.
Guest:And that was a struggle.
Guest:That was really, really hard.
Guest:It was hard for them, hard for me.
Guest:And it took...
Guest:And I almost gave up, to be honest.
Guest:Then I met this friend here in New Orleans who read the book, and he said, you've got a doozy here.
Guest:You just need to straighten it up a little bit, do some editing, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Guest:And just to have one person say, I get it.
Guest:I see it.
Guest:It was like, OK, I'll keep trying with that.
Guest:If I hadn't had that one person, I don't know if if I would have kept trying to write it.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's it's weird because a lot of people that write memoirs, I think, especially from rock or music.
Marc:I guess editors assume like, well, this is it's a redemption story and they lived and they survived.
Marc:Let's just get to the good part and the drugs and whatever and the good, good stories.
Marc:But I think that if somebody really kind of took the weight of your songwriting and your vision in general, they would have realized that you're like you've always been a writer.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I'm always going to innovate in anything I do.
Guest:It's just my nature.
Guest:And to their credit, you know, they eventually came around.
Guest:I think when they got the book, when they received the book, finally, they got it.
Guest:And they're so proud.
Guest:They're like proud parents.
Guest:And that's okay.
Guest:They're so proud of the book and the good notices.
Guest:And I'm glad to have their courage.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Well, great job.
Marc:And great job surviving and being you and being an original artist.
Marc:And it was a pleasure talking to you.
Guest:Thanks for making it fun.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:You got it.
Marc:Take care of yourself, Ricky Lee.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks for you, too.
Marc:ricky lee jones wow survivor man real survivor her book last chance texaco is available wherever you get your uh wherever you get your books and if you want to hear her tell it tell the story read the book she reads it she reads the audiobook version so that's uh that would be great i'm gonna play my stratocaster
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so so
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Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey LaFonda.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:I think one just texted me.
Boomer lives.