Concerts

Relish the rock-pop-folk-jazz stylings of Rickie Lee Jones in Rockport

The one and only "Duchess of Coolsville" will captivate a Shalin Liu Performance Center crowd on March 5.

Photo by Astor Morgan

By Blake Maddux

2 minutes to read

Rickie Lee Jones recently received some unexpected attention from an unlikely source.

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were the first of several musicians who have pulled their music from Spotify in protest of its paying Joe Rogan $100 million for his podcast, which has been known to feature guests peddling less-than-accurate information about COVID-19.  

In response, the former “Fear Factor” host proclaimed his longtime admiration of both musicians, saying of Mitchell, “I love her music” and that “‘Chuck E.’s in Love’ is a great song.”

To his credit, he later posted a correction in which he stated, “I just realized ‘chuckie’s in love’ is Ricky Lee Jones not Joni Mitchell. Doh!” To his discredit, he misspelled both the name of the song and the artist who wrote and recorded it. (Perhaps, as someone I know has suggested, he was trolling.)

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Still, the first song from The Duchess of Coolsville’s eponymous 1979 debut is a great one, thereby demonstrating that even a stopped clock that is set to military time is right once a day.

The 11-year stretch from 1979 to 1989 was a hot one for the Chicago native turned L.A. scenester. It was bookended by both of her Grammy wins (Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group) and two of the bestselling albums of her career (“Rickie Lee Jones” and “Flying Cowboys”). Each of her four LPs and one EP from this period reinforced the admiration of fans, critics, and award givers.

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Jones has released at least three albums per decade since 1991. Three have consisted entirely of her interpretations of others’ songs, but to quote AllMusic’s Zac Johnson, “Not since Billie Holiday has there been a vocalist who so completely transforms a song into her own.”

In 2021, she published her memoir, “Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour” (Grove Atlantic). In answering one of the questions I asked her about that book, she said, “As long as you can keep your focus on the art that you’re doing, the larger thing it can serve – selling records or whatever – that’ll happen on its own. If you aim at that [selling records] instead of the song, then things go awry.”

It is this perspective that has allowed Jones to record and tour for more than four full decades. On March 5 – 43 years and one week after the release of “Rickie Lee Jones” – she will spellbind the patrons of Shalin Liu Performance Center.

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