here i am in new york city,
had a great (though very long) day of press yesterday,
three radio shows at two stations,
and a couple long interviews with press that will
get picked up by.....Rueters, stuff like that.
Both journalists were very informed, very thorough,
and pushing.....you know.....the envelope of discussion,
and I enjoyed it alot.
i prefer email interviews, i can elaborate and contemplate and
do it on my own time, in my own way... on the road its the best way.
but these two phoners were pretty satisfiing after all.
This tour has been outstanding for a couple reasons.
the first is that i feel so surrounded by love that i just have to
puffy up once in a while and shake my feathers. really.
my tour manager, the band, and the audience, they
seem to be gathering together in a rally of support
that makes me feel more comfortable than i have felt in a long time.
I am most always comfortable on stage, but this is happening
off stage. smiles, pats, extra help all the way.
it's like they really do want me to play, and want
the shows to go well. i feel it, the audience feels it.
the audience is another critter all together, and
they have always been, as one spirit, a loving
and compassionate point....they move like water
or wind through a grove, they are leaning toward
the left, now rising, now contemplative, its so
wonderful, i just love my life today, right now,
the sound of my breath.
i want to also again say cudos, gratulations,
love, to my web designer Roxanne, what a beautiful
job you have done for me. Every time i come to the site
i think this is more than i could have imagined, i mean,
how do i say this. The art she offers for the music is
so well paired, such a mirror, and yet so much more,
she has really taken this web site to a dimension of art
subtle and extensive, i am so very pleased.
so just three more shows, and only one more with Charlie,
the drummer. our last two shows will be acoustic, they way
we started in North Carlolina a week or so ago.
i will travel on my 55th birthday, as i did on my 50th,
to a gig in London, Jools Holland, after many years, and
are we excited. we will perform the Moon is Made of Gold,
daddy would be so happy i think. well, mother too.
well, they are so happy.
then a small tour, through spain, holland, belgium ,
and so excited to be back. Sal Bernardi will be wtih me again.
and i am looking forward to visiting David Tibet in England.
so that is the tour update. we are getting a camera and will
be posting much more regularly the antics of those wild
boys of austin, paris and la as they dust off the european
streets with wild winds music, magic and madness.
and lots of prayers and laughing and sleeping.
and maybe some chips and tea and ginger and peppermint and i am
on a french keyboard so excuse the odd note here or there.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
I want to say hey to all the people who have been waiting for me to come back to my web site... I have been busy working, and recovering, and still am not entirely on my feet. I have been ill, and am feeling better every day.
David Kalish and I have made a new recording, made over the past 10 or 12 weeks. We are going to start playing it for people in February, and the first few people who have heard it have been wildly encouraging.
It looks like it will contain two or three re recordings of older material. Horses, Saturday Afternoons will probably make the cut. The rest of the music is all new, some written during the recording, some older and never recorded. The music is powerful, r&b, soul, and rootsy blues, I guess. I can't really describe what I create.
I plan to make some music available to the people who so generously sent money for the cd last year, I plan to make available a song or two to people attending the live shows at Largo , starting this Valentine's Day.
So welcome back, and I hope to see you around. We are redesigning the site over the next few months, but hope to keep up afew pages we can keep current while we are reamaking the site. Send me any suggestions you have, I am not on the internet that much any more, so I need to hear all the ideas you would like to see on the RLJ stie.
Adios.
Rickie Lee Jones
David Kalish and I have made a new recording, made over the past 10 or 12 weeks. We are going to start playing it for people in February, and the first few people who have heard it have been wildly encouraging.
It looks like it will contain two or three re recordings of older material. Horses, Saturday Afternoons will probably make the cut. The rest of the music is all new, some written during the recording, some older and never recorded. The music is powerful, r&b, soul, and rootsy blues, I guess. I can't really describe what I create.
I plan to make some music available to the people who so generously sent money for the cd last year, I plan to make available a song or two to people attending the live shows at Largo , starting this Valentine's Day.
So welcome back, and I hope to see you around. We are redesigning the site over the next few months, but hope to keep up afew pages we can keep current while we are reamaking the site. Send me any suggestions you have, I am not on the internet that much any more, so I need to hear all the ideas you would like to see on the RLJ stie.
Adios.
Rickie Lee Jones
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Who are the 25 most influential singers in Pop music today?
Some guidelines and rules...
Rules
Singers must have started their recording careers no earlier than 1953, and no later than 1993.
What is POP music?
That umbrella including folk, rock, r&b, black, white, soft, loud, all the latter day sub genres of those disciplines. In other words, every kind of popular music, from Leslie Gore to Lou Reed.
Singers must have some relevance to the popular culture.They must have either been played on the radio, worked professionally, discussed in media during their own lifetimes, achieved some notoriety so that their name was, is known among musicians and/or the population at large.
Some scenarios..
Robert Johnson is a good example. If no one really heard of him during his lifetime, if his work was not re-recorded and he was not played on radio or performed regularly in public, if he was not heard during his lifetime, he did not influence the music that evolved after him. If he was discovered forty years later, and imitated, then the case can be made that he directly influenced music, as long as the imitation is obvious. If the imitation is not direct, it is a case of inspiration, and this is not what we are calculating here.
Billie Holiday is another example. She has been imitated by a very successful young singer. Perhaps the case could be made, if one argued that this popular singer has been influential herself for over fifteen years, that Billie Holiday is directly influential on pop music today. ) Again, I am looking more for the influences started with the discovery, more or less, of rock n roll, as I personally think Sinatra is the King, but he will not be on my list, since his career begins long before 1953. )
If JJ Kingbaum taught Bob Dylan how to write poems, JJ Kingbaum did not influence music, Dylan did. We do not know JJ, he did not record, and he is not who we listened to. In this context, we are looking for the names of people you think had an influence on the way songs are sung, the way people listen, they way writers write. The obscure singers guide may be another sporting event... we shall see.
Guidelines
No more than three sentences to explain your choice. Give us the list, just a bit of background.
Here are some guidelines to use when thinking this through...remembering that all singers are derived from what came before them, and that this list is not a list of best or better, but a calculation, a summation of your view of which voices seem to have influenced waves of other voices, what tones or vowels has history has brought forward, what are the threads each new generation uses to weave its tapestry of sound?
When you do this work you may be surprised who you come up with. Youngsters may not even know that they have taken the tone of Buddy Holly, or Aretha Franklin, may not know their names. It is for you to correctly gage history, our musical history.
So much music journalism, under the influence of publicists, products, under pressure to conform, impress, deliver, or, simply due to lack of knowledge, rewrite history from a vantage point that does not recognized the truth, ignores unpopular names and opts for the more cooler version. You write it now, and remember, this is not your favorite list, this is the list of whose voice has affected pop music? Is Madonna on your list? How bout buffy St Marie? Why? In three sentences. Use your before, during and after. Our history is our culture. Let’s write it for ourselves.
Before, During, and After
Did their style exist before they appeared?
If so, how did they impact it? If not, how many people today sing, in some manner, like this singer?
Did they have an impact on their own time? Where they impactful during?
Do you hear elements of their style now? What elements are unique to them? (The elements that make your artist unique... even though they have been taken up by somany singers, or so much of the culture.)
Dylan first two words of a sentence use two notes, half spoken, it’s his trademark. How is this heard today? Do you hear it? Has it been edified so much that it is a new thing entirely?
If your singers style is unique, yet they seem to bare some resemblance to an older singer, one not as clearly impactful on the POP music of today, mention the mentor. It is a chance to show how even the most unique have roots in others. This is good. (For instance, say you voted for Tom Waits, but noted his voice bore some resemblance to Louis Armstrong. You would note this after his name).
Rules
Singers must have started their recording careers no earlier than 1953, and no later than 1993.
What is POP music?
That umbrella including folk, rock, r&b, black, white, soft, loud, all the latter day sub genres of those disciplines. In other words, every kind of popular music, from Leslie Gore to Lou Reed.
Singers must have some relevance to the popular culture.They must have either been played on the radio, worked professionally, discussed in media during their own lifetimes, achieved some notoriety so that their name was, is known among musicians and/or the population at large.
Some scenarios..
Robert Johnson is a good example. If no one really heard of him during his lifetime, if his work was not re-recorded and he was not played on radio or performed regularly in public, if he was not heard during his lifetime, he did not influence the music that evolved after him. If he was discovered forty years later, and imitated, then the case can be made that he directly influenced music, as long as the imitation is obvious. If the imitation is not direct, it is a case of inspiration, and this is not what we are calculating here.
Billie Holiday is another example. She has been imitated by a very successful young singer. Perhaps the case could be made, if one argued that this popular singer has been influential herself for over fifteen years, that Billie Holiday is directly influential on pop music today. ) Again, I am looking more for the influences started with the discovery, more or less, of rock n roll, as I personally think Sinatra is the King, but he will not be on my list, since his career begins long before 1953. )
If JJ Kingbaum taught Bob Dylan how to write poems, JJ Kingbaum did not influence music, Dylan did. We do not know JJ, he did not record, and he is not who we listened to. In this context, we are looking for the names of people you think had an influence on the way songs are sung, the way people listen, they way writers write. The obscure singers guide may be another sporting event... we shall see.
Guidelines
No more than three sentences to explain your choice. Give us the list, just a bit of background.
Here are some guidelines to use when thinking this through...remembering that all singers are derived from what came before them, and that this list is not a list of best or better, but a calculation, a summation of your view of which voices seem to have influenced waves of other voices, what tones or vowels has history has brought forward, what are the threads each new generation uses to weave its tapestry of sound?
When you do this work you may be surprised who you come up with. Youngsters may not even know that they have taken the tone of Buddy Holly, or Aretha Franklin, may not know their names. It is for you to correctly gage history, our musical history.
So much music journalism, under the influence of publicists, products, under pressure to conform, impress, deliver, or, simply due to lack of knowledge, rewrite history from a vantage point that does not recognized the truth, ignores unpopular names and opts for the more cooler version. You write it now, and remember, this is not your favorite list, this is the list of whose voice has affected pop music? Is Madonna on your list? How bout buffy St Marie? Why? In three sentences. Use your before, during and after. Our history is our culture. Let’s write it for ourselves.
Before, During, and After
Did their style exist before they appeared?
If so, how did they impact it? If not, how many people today sing, in some manner, like this singer?
Did they have an impact on their own time? Where they impactful during?
Do you hear elements of their style now? What elements are unique to them? (The elements that make your artist unique... even though they have been taken up by somany singers, or so much of the culture.)
Dylan first two words of a sentence use two notes, half spoken, it’s his trademark. How is this heard today? Do you hear it? Has it been edified so much that it is a new thing entirely?
If your singers style is unique, yet they seem to bare some resemblance to an older singer, one not as clearly impactful on the POP music of today, mention the mentor. It is a chance to show how even the most unique have roots in others. This is good. (For instance, say you voted for Tom Waits, but noted his voice bore some resemblance to Louis Armstrong. You would note this after his name).
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