Rickie Lee Jones - Early Career

Early Career

At the age of 21, Jones began to play in clubs in Venice. She met Alfred Johnson, a piano player and song writer, and the two wrote some of her most famous songs in the first week they wrote together, including Company and parts of Weasel and the White Boys Cool. Nick Mathe, a neighbor, took an interest in her music, helped her get publicity photos with Bonnie Shiftman, then at A&M, in the off hours the three of them shot Miss Jones' first pictures. Rickie Lee played her music in showcases, worked with cover bands in clubs, sat in with Venice jazz bands, where her 'my Funny Valentine' became something of a local legend. But it wasn't until she moved to Hollywood that her career took off. She came to the attention of Dr. John and Little Feat's Lowell George in early 1978 through the efforts of Ivan Ulz, and it was Lowell who recorded her song "Easy Money" as the single for his first solo record. Jones also met Tom Waits and Chuck Weiss, whom she wrote about, and for a time, hung out with. When Lenny Woronker and Tommy LaPuma heard about her in 1978, a bidding war ensued, and Jones was signed to Warner Bros. for a five-record deal, as an unknown, a girl on unemployment, whose life was about to change the course of pop music at a time when it was highly divided by genre. For if her early career accomplished one thing, it was to bring women out of the folkrock genre and into a more expansive idea. Jones multi genre music and provocative stage show forged the way for all who came after her.

Rickie Lee Jones met Tom Waits at The Troubadour in 1977 after an Ivan Ulz show in which she had sung a few of her songs - and her father's song, the Moon is Made of Gold. The two would be lovers at the onset of her career, creating a lifelong association with one another, and harnessing her with his name long after their love affair was over. They were a popular couple at the time (Second City TV skits...) and they moved in together, Waits leaving his Tropicana days, Jones coming off a world wide tour in which she was booked as 'the new voice of America' in Germany, France and England. After their break up, Jones hooked up with pal Sal Bernardi. This long-time collaborator, who inspired her "Weasel and the White Boys", would remain a personal and musical partner for decades. Nominated for six Grammy Awards, she told her mentor Bob Regher she would not attend the ceremony. Calling him at the last minute, they raced to the event just in time for her to walk up and collect her 'best new artist' trophy, in her leather jacket and boa, signature beret and gloves. Her popular acceptance speech, in which she thanked her lawyers and her accountant (this was the year most of the winners, from Dylan to Diamond, were thanking God), became the hallmark, again, for speeches to come.

Jones and Waits were lovers of such enigmatic appeal it would be many decades before the media stopped asking them about one another. In fact, even after the break up, Francis Ford Coppola asked Rickie Lee to collaborate with Mr. Waits on the upcoming film, One from the Heart, but she balked, citing the recent breakup. Francis responded that it would be perfect for the film, since the two characters are separated, and he asked her to reconsider. Realizing the pressure to reunite with Tom Waits, Jones refused the job. It was then that Waits met his future wife, and Jones began work on Pirates, one of the 100 must-hear CDs, a five-star Rolling Stone record, including "We Belong Together", garnering praise from every corner of rock media at the time. Steely Dan, Randy Newman, the Brecker Brothers, and Steve Gadd, are a few of the A-list folk inducted to create the 18-month ordeal that produced her second 'sophomore' effort, a study in the end of her love affair and the darkness that followed.