Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Last Chance Texaco

Chronicles of an American Troubadour

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Have you met Ms. Jones?

One night in 1979, a woman in a red beret skyrocketed to fame after a performance on Saturday Night Live. The song was "Chuck E's in Love," and the singer, Rickie Lee Jones. A vital part of the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz pop scene, she would soon be pronounced "Duchess of Coolsville" by TIME magazine.

Last Chance Texaco is the first no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock's hardest working women in her own words. With candour and lyricism, Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life, including her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers; her father's abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway; her beginnings at LA's Troubadour club; her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits and her battle with drugs; and her longevity as a woman in rock and roll.

These are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a songwriter who would inspire American culture for decades.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 12, 2021
      Two-time Grammy Award–winning singer Jones delivers a crackling debut memoir recounting her roving early years. Coming of age in a struggling family of orphans and artists in Arizona, her worldview was shaped by the cultural upheaval of the 1960s as well as the trauma she inherited from her veteran father and narrowly escaped as a hitchhiking runaway. “Some of us are born to live lives on an exaggerated scale,” writes Jones. Divided into driving-themed sections, she begins with her childhood in “The Back Seat” and makes it to the “Driver’s Seat” when her career as a singer-songwriter took off in 1979. Her travels informed tracks like “Easy Money” and “Night Train,” with help from a world of edgy characters and lovers who became her muses. (“We were religions, we converted to each other,” she writes of her romance with Tom Waits.) Threading her account with song lyrics, Jones creates a narrative soundtrack of her influences, including Crosby, Stills & Nash, Marvin Gaye, and Laura Nyro. From a harrowing affair with heroin to bold career risks—for instance, not budging when SNL’s Lorne Michael said her set might be cut short—Jones depicts both the pitfalls and bravery of living with nothing to lose. Wise and gorgeous, this story is as poetic as the songs that made Jones famous.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading